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LIFE AND LETTERS 



OF 



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HARRIET BEECHER STOVVE 

EDITED BY ANNIE FIELDS 




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CAMBRIDGE 

printcu at rtjr J^ibcrsiiDc l^ttssi 



M DCCC XCVII 



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r.cGElVED 



COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY ANNIE FIELDS 
All rights reserved. 



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PEEFACE 

The editor of this book wishes to express her thanks to 
the Rev. C. E. Stowe for the use of the Life of Mrs. Stowe 
Avritten by him while his mother was still at his side. His 
sequence of material concerning her early days left little to 
be desired ; but many letters and much new material have 
since appeared, and the publishers believe that a complete 
life, corresponding to the new and beautiful edition of Mrs. 
Stowe's works lately issued by them, is wished for by the 
public. 

To Messrs. Harper and Brothers the editor is indebted for 
the use of the Life of Dr. Lyman Beecher, passages from 
which, chiefly those written by Mrs. Stowe, have been used 
as necessary parts of her own history. 

To the friends whose letters now appear for the first 
time the thanks of the editor are especially due. 

The moment has at last arrived when the story of Mrs. 
Stowe's life can be given in full. The cause to which she 
surrendered herself is not forgotten ; one by one the figures 
of those who bore a part in the great sacrifice begin to 
shine like bronze after the smelting, and stand, cut in im- 
perishable forms, upon the tablets of memory. Therefore 
it is fitting that one who led the vanguard, one who was 
born nevertheless to carry neither gun nor bayonet, but to 
bear upon her heart the weight of a great love for sufl"ering 
men, should now herself be known. 

A. F. 



CONTENTS 



CBAFTCB PAOB 

I. Ancestry aud Early Childhood 1 

II. Life at Litchfield 25 

in. Boston and the Hartford School 55 

rV. Life in Cincinnati and Marriage .... 73 

V. Brunswick 122 

VI. Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin and First Visit to Eng- 
land 162 

VII. Portraiture: Correspondence: Second Visit to Eu- 
rope 205 

Vni. Bereavement: Third and Last Visit to Europe . 238 

IX. War 258 

X. Private Life in War-time 279 

XI. Life in Florida 302 

Xn. Public Readings: Trial of Henry Ward Beecher . 344 

XIII. Nearino the End 376 



LIFE ASD LETTEES 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 



CHAPTEE I 

ASCESTRY A2m EABLT CHILDHOOD 

Thkss were generaikms ci *i*ax»fUv and fine derelop- 
nent belimd the life of Vtr- Stove. Jdm Beedier and 
his mother, tiie fixst of the zaee who came to this txxaatrr, 
ei^ateen jeazs after the amral <rf the Mayflower, were 
ai the eo m pa uy of Dsrenpoity a dietiiigiiuhed clergyman 
of London, imd» whoee leadexship came a rich and able 
bodj of men and women with the aentna mtention of 
founding a new exAcBj. Mis. Heotbei was a good woman, 
and naefol to the com pany, therefore they gare her a lot 
of land in New Haren, whither ibej aoua betook thon- 
Bttree. The eqmralent cf this land had been promised to 
her husband before his death, which oeeurred on tiie ere 
of their departure. Their first retigioos serriee was held 
xmder a large oak upon tiiis 7 ' "i ^tere later the 
house was boilt, caDed laiterl - i Beeeha house. 

It is impoeoUe to nnderstond tae oerelopmait of gen- 
ius nnleas we regard the root from which it firings. We 
wonder at the beanty of the roae, bat we think little of 
the bodb which bore it nntfl we find no other roee to eqoal 
it, and then we say. Whence came this wonder! 



2 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE 

The Beecher race may justly be considered a noble one, 
as we trace it from this beginning; strong in spirit as 
well as in body, always readers and thinkers, always ani- 
mated with love of the public good, and holding it pre- 
dominant above private good. The grandfather of Mrs. 
Stowe was "one of the best read men in New England; 
well versed in astronomy, geography, and history, and in 
the interests of the Protestant reformation. Old Squire 
Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, used to say that he always calculated to see 
Mr. Beecher as soon as he got home from Congress to talk 
over the particulars." 

Surely it is not often that one discovers such persistence 
of traits and habits as in this family. One would seem 
to be reading of Mrs. Stowe' s father rather than her grand- 
father, as the history continues: "He always kept a num- 
ber of college students and of representatives to the Legis- 
lature as boarders, being fond of their conversation. He 
often kept pace with his student boarders in their studies, 
frequently spending his evenings in their rooms. He had 
a tenacious memory for what he read, but was entirely 
forgetful and careless as to his dress, hat, tools, etc." This 
grandfather was not a preacher, nor a college-bred man. 
He was a farmer and blacksmith and maker of tools, 
employing a man to do the ordinary work of the shop. 
Dr. Beecher used to say he himself was so like his father 
that when his sister Esther grew old she often called him 
"father" by mistake, instead of "brother." 

The same strange absent-mindedness which we shall find 
in Mrs. Stowe is spoken of as a trait in her grandfather's 
character. "Your Aunt Esther," says Dr. Beecher, "has 
known him at least twelve times to come in from the barn 
and sit down on a coat pocket full of eggs, jump up and 
say, ' Oh, wife ! ' ' Why, my dear, ' she would reply, * I 
do wonder you can put eggs in your pocket after you have 



ANCESTRY. 3 

broken them so once. ' * Well, ' he would say, ' I thought 
I should remember this time. ' " 

The same love of fun, the same suffering from depres- 
sion of spirits, possessed this grandfather as was seen in 
his son and his grandchildren. Dr. Lyman Beecher's 
mother was of Scotch descent, a Miss Lyman. He says 
of her: "She was a woman tall, well-proportioned, dignified 
in her movements, fair to look upon, intelligent in conver- 
sation, and in character lovely. I was her only child. 
She died of consumption two days after I was born. I 
was a seven months' child; and when the woman that 
attended on her saw what a puny thing I was, and that 
the mother could not live, she thought it useless to attempt 
to keep me alive. I was actually wrapped up and laid 
aside. But, after a while, one of the women thought she 
would look and see if I was living, and, finding I was, 
concluded to wash and dress me, saying, ' It 's a pity he 
hadn't died with his mother.' So you see it was but by 
a hair's breadth I got a foothold in this world." 

One experience, testifying to the sincerity of heart of the 
Beecher family, and to their clear judgment, was common 
to father, son, and grandson, Henry Ward Beecher. They 
all married women distinguished for intellect and character. 
Whatever appreciation of grace and refinement may have 
been theirs, their wives possessed qualities born of energy 
of mind and piety of heart. Dr. Beecher grew up in his 
uncle's family at Guilford, Connecticut. It was country 
life indeed, but there was an excellent school where he 
Avas very early told by the teacher to come up "next the 
head," because he was the best reader in the school. His 
pride at this announcement can be imagined. It dwelt 
with him all his life, and came back to his memory when, 
being too old to write himself, his children gathered round 
and made him tell the story of his days. 

"They say everybody knows about God naturally," 



4 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

continued the old man. "A lie. All such ideas are by 
teaching. One Sunday evening, I was out playing. They 
kept Saturday evening, and children might play on Sun- 
day evening as soon as they could see three stars. But I 
was so impatient I did not wait for that. Bill H. saw me 
and said : — 

" ' That 's wicked; there ain't three stars.' 

"'Don't care.' 

" * God says you mustn't.' 

"'Don't care.' 

" ' He '11 punish you. ' 

" ' Well, if He does, I '11 tell Aunt Benton.' 

" ' Well, He 's bigger than Aunt Benton, and He '11 put 
you in the fire and burn you for ever and ever.' 

" That took hold. I understood what fire was and what 
forever was. What emotion I had thinking, No end! no 
end ! It has been a sort of mainspring ever since. 

"Curious now, this thing of personal identity! Here 
I am an old man, telling you this story about a little boy ; 
and yet I feel I am the same person I was then." 

But the continuation of this identity as we see it in 
his son Henry Ward Beecher and in his daughter Harriet 
makes the wonder of it still more living. How like in 
character is that tale of Henry's childhood, when, being 
very angry, he rushes from the house behind the barn and 
after a pause, says to himself, "Damn it." Then he re- 
members that it is wicked to swear; what would become of 
him! The thought was too horrible to be endured. Sweat 
stood in great drops upon his forehead. After a while, he 
could bear the solitude no longer and went back into the 
house, but doubtless carrying with him an unhappy con- 
science for many a long day. 

To show moral courage of a high order was common to 
them all. Lyman Beecher went to college, although there 
was very little money, his father having married again, 



ANCESTRY 5 

and the house being iwll of children. His uncle helped 
him out; but he was very industrious, and made a good 
deal of money, for that time, by his own exertions. He 
heard a robber one night in his room, and waked just in 
season to see him disappearing with some garments through 
the window. Lyman Beecher had a hot chase, but caught 
the thief, brought him back to his room, and made him 
lie on the floor by his bed until morning, when he carried 
him before the judge. 

Mrs. Stowe asked her father once if he was never afraid 
when he was a boy alone in the fields hoeing corn, and 
one of the great summer thunderstorms broke over him. 
"Not I. I wished it would thunder all day. I never 
heard such thunder since, except once in the hills round 
Marietta, Ohio." 

When his college days were nearly over, he began to 
spend a part of his vacations in Guilford, near the large 
house and farm of General Andrew Ward. Here Roxana 
Foote lived, whom he married after a courtship of two 
years. He found her reading Sir Charles Grandison. 
"She said she never meant to marry until she found his 
Jike — I presume she thought she had. All the new 
works that were published at that day were brought out 
to the old house at Nutplains, read and discussed in the 
old spinning-mill. When Miss Burney's ' Evelina ' ap- 
peared, Sally Hill rode out on horseback to bring it to 
Roxana. A great treat they had of it. There was the 
greatest frolicking in that spinning-mill ! Roxana was queen 
among those girls ! 

"I was made for action. The Lord drove me, but I was 
ready. I have always been going at full speed. The fifty 
years of my active life have been years of rapid develop- 
ment." 

Mrs. Stowe said of her father: "He often expressed to 



6 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

me great displeasure at the publication of private diaries of 
good men, especially if they were of a melancholy cast, or 
those recording great alternations of ecstasy and gloom. 
Indeed, for no other thing did he become more cele- 
brated than for his power of imparting hope to the de- 
sponding; and it was those dark and doubting hours of his 
own early life — painful as they were — which furnished 
him with the necessary knowledge for the guidance of 
hundreds of sensitive and troubled spirits to the firm 
ground of a cheerful, intelligent religious hope." He never 
preached without his eye on his audience. He noticed 
every change of countenance, every indication of awakened 
interest; and these he immediately followed up by seeking 
private conversation. His ardor in this pursuit was singu- 
lar and almost indescribable. He used to liken it to the 
ardor of the chase. 

Speaking of his wife Roxana, Dr. Beecher said : " There 
were some things about your mother's religious character 
peculiar, and very satisfactory in the retrospect. She 
thought herself converted when five or six years old. She 
could scarcely remember the time, but that, in all her 
childish joys and sorrows, she went to God in prayer. 
She experienced resignation, if any one ever did. I never 
saw the like, — so entire, without reservation or shadow of 
turning. In no exigency was she taken by surprise. She 
was just there, quiet as an angel above. I never heard a 
murmur; and if there ever was a perfect mind as respects 
submission, it was hers. I never witnessed a movement of 
the least degree of selfishness; and if there ever was any 
such thing in the world as disinterestedness, she had it." 

Dr. Beecher married Roxana Foote in 1799, as soon as 
possible after his settlement in the town of East Hampton, 
Long Island. He was then twenty-four years old, full of 
youthful energy, not to be daunted by the strange condi- 
tions of his new island home. 



HARRIET BORN AT LITCHFIELD 7 

The parish of East Hampton was still a wild and removed 
spot when Dr. Beecher carried thither his young wife. 
The place was first visited by white people under Hudson 
eleven years before the arrival of the Mayflower at Ply- 
mouth. "They found an interminable beach of snowy 
sand, on which the ocean never ceases to beat; dark for- 
ests, wild fowl in countless flocks, and throngs of admiring 
and astonished savages. . . . When Dr. Beecher went to 
this picturesque but wild spot a windmill stood at each 
end of the one long street. There were no trees except a 
line of poplars between two of the best houses, and a single 
enormous elm which had been trimmed up to a head." 

East Hampton was early settled by intelligent men, and 
there was but one church, a large dignified building with 
bell and clock, the finest on the island. In these early 
days one fourth of the whales stranded on the beach were 
always presented to the minister as a portion of his salary. 

The part of the parish first settled was Gardiner's Island, 
which was separated from the town by a bay four or five 
miles wide. This island has never passed out of the 
hands of the Gardiner family, and while Dr. Beecher was 
at East Hampton he found true pleasure and companion- 
ship with the seventh heir, John Lyon Gardiner, whose 
hospitable mansion was always ready to receive the young 
minister. Here it was that Dr. Beecher and his wife 
started in life. Here he planted an orchard, the first that 
had been seen in that land, behind a pleasant house on the 
grassy street very near to tlie tumbling sea. Here their 
life of tireless industry went on. Mrs. Beecher added to 
everything else a love of painting, and finished twenty-four 
fine miniatures upon ivory at this period. But as children 
came to them, the remoteness and the labor of their post 
were too great, and they removed to Litchfield, Connecticut, 
whither the minister had been "called." 

Harriet Beecher was born in Litchfield, June 14, 1811. 



8 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE 

This town was first settled in 1720 in a pleasant high 
country among hills, lakes, and valleys. Evidently intel- 
ligent men founded also this settlement, because they were 
stirring patriots during the war of the revolution, and were 
visited by Washington, Lafayette, Eochambeau, and many 
of the principal officers of the army. One of the chief 
heroes of that time lived to be a parishioner of Dr. Beecher. 
Also during his life in Litchfield and helping to make 
the town famous, were, among others. Governor Oliver 
Wolcott, Jr., a member of Washington's cabinet, John 
Pierpont the poet, and Judge Reeve. These men became 
intimate friends of Dr. Beecher; especially Judge Reeve, 
who had founded in Litchfield a celebrated law school, to 
which young men were sent from nearly every State in the 
union. The Reverend Mr. Huntington, who preceded Dr. 
Beecher, wrote of Litchfield: "It is a delightful village 
on a fruitful hill, richly endowed with schools, both pro- 
fessional and scientific, with its remarkable governors and 
judges, with its learned lawyers and senators, and represen- 
tatives both in the National and State departments, and 
with a population enlightened and respectable. Litchfield 
was now in its glory." 

The meeting-house, of course, made a great impression 
upon the child Harriet. She described it later in life in 
her first book, called "The Mayflower: " "To my childish 
eyes our old meeting-house was an awe-inspiring thing. To 
me it seemed fashioned very nearly on the model of Noah's 
Ark and Solomon's Temple, as set forth in the pictures in 
my Scripture Catechism. ... Its double row of windows, 
of which I knew the number by heart, its doors, Avith 
great wooden quirls over them; its belfry, projecting out 
at the east end; its steeple and bell, all inspired as much 
sense of the sublime in me as Strasbourg Cathedral itself. 
. . . But the glory in the execution of those good old 
billowy compositions called fuguing tunes, where the four 



DEATH OF MRS. BEECHER 9 

parts that compose the choir take up the song, and go 
racing around one after another, each singing a different 
set of words, till at length, by some inexplicable magic, 
they all come together again, and sail smoothly out into a 
rolling sea of harmony! I remember the wonder with 
which I used to look from side to side when treble, tenor, 
counter, and bass, were thus roaring and foaming, and it 
verily seemed to me as if the psalm were going to pieces 
among the breakers, and the delighted astonishment with 
which I found that each particular verse did emerge whole 
and uninjured from the storm." 

Harriet Beecher was hardly four years old when her 
mother died, leaving eight little children weeping round 
her bed. Of these children two possessed what the world 
calls genius. They were all more or less distinguished, 
Catherine, the eldest, being a woman of remarkable char- 
acter. Harriet and Henry Ward were next to the young- 
est, always inseparable companions, always inspired with the 
tenderest love and faith in each other to the end of life. 

Mrs. Stowe says of her mother and of her touching de- 
parture from this world: "I was between three and four 
years of age when our mother died, and my own personal 
recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep 
interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew 
her was such that, during all my childhood, I was con- 
stantly hearing her spoken of, and, from one friend or 
another, some incident or anecdote of her life was con- 
stantly being impressed on me. 

"Mother was one of tliose strong, restful, yet widely 
sympathetic natures, in whom all around seemed to find 
comfort and repose. She was of a temperament peculiarly 
restful and peace-giving. Her union of spirit with God, 
unruffled and unbroken even from early childhood, seemed 
to impart to her an equilibrium and healthful placidity 
that no earthly reverses ever disturl>ed. The communion 



10 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE 

between her and my father was a peculiar one. It was 
an intimacy throughout the whole range of their being. 
There was no human mind in whose decisions he had 
greater confidence. Both intellectually and morally he 
regarded her as the better and stronger portion of himself, 
and I remember hearing him say that, after her death, his 
first sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child sud- 
denly shut out alone in the dark, 

" Her death occurred at a time when the ISTew England 
ministry were in a peculiar crisis of political and moral 
trial, and the need of such a stay and support in his 
household was more than ever felt. ... I asked him the 
question whether he ever had any reason to believe that 
the spirits of the blessed are ever permitted to minister to 
us in our earthly sorrows, and he said, after a moment of 
deep thought, * I never but once had anything like it. It 
was a time of great trial and obloqiiy, and I had been 
visiting around in my parish, and heard many things here 
and there that distressed me, I came home to my house 
almost overwhelmed; it seemed as if I must sink under it, 
I went to sleep in the north bedroom, — the room where 
your mother died, I dreamed that I heard voices and 
footsteps in the next room, and that I knew immediately 
it was Roxana and Mary Hubbard coming to see me. The 
door opened, and Mary stayed without, but your mother 
came in and came toward me. She did not speak, but 
she smiled on me a smile of heaven, and with that smile 
all my sorrow passed away. I awoke joyful, and I was 
light-hearted for weeks after,' 

"In my own early childhood only two incidents of my 
mother twinkle like rays through the darkness. One was 
of our all running and dancing out before her from the 
nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning, and her 
pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day 
to keep it holy. ' 



EOXANA FOOTE 11 

"Another remembrance is this: Mother was an enthu- 
siastic horticulturalist in all the small ways that limited 
means allowed. Her brother John, in New York, had 
just sent her a small parcel of fine tulip-bulbs. I remem- 
ber rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nur- 
sery one day when she was gone out, and being strongly 
seized with the idea that they Avere good to eat, and using 
all the little English I then possessed to persuade my 
brothers that these Avere onions such as grown people ate, 
and would be very nice for us. So we fell to and devoured 
the whole; and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in 
the odd, sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not 
as nice as I had supposed. Then mother's serene face 
appeared at the nursery door, and we all ran toward her, 
and with one voice began to tell our discovery and achieve- 
ment. We had found this bag of onions and had eaten 
them all up. 

"Also I remember that there was not even a momentary 
expression of impatience, but that she sat down and said : 
'^ry dear children, what you have done makes mamma 
very sorry; those were not onion-roots, but roots of beauti- 
ful flowers; and if you had let them alone, ma would have 
had next summer in the garden great beautiful red and 
yellow flowers such as you never saw. ' I remember how 
drooping and dispirited we all grew at this picture, and 
how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag. 

" Then I have a recollection of her reading to the chil- 
dren one evening aloud Miss Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which 
had just come out, I believe, and was exciting a good deal 
of attention among the educational circles of Litchfield. 
After that, I remember a time when every one said she 
was sick; when, if I went into the street, every one asked 
me how my mother was ; when I saw the shelves of the 
closets crowded with delicacies which had been sent in for 
her, and how 1 used to be permitted to go once a day into 



12 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

her room, where she sat bolstered up in bed, taking her 
gruel. I have a vision of a very fair face, with a bright 
red spot on each cheek, and a quiet smile as she offered 
me a spoonful of her gruel; of our dreaming one night, 
we little ones, that mamma had got well, and waking in 
loud transports of joy, and being hushed down by some 
one coming into the room. Our dream was indeed a true 
one. She was forever well; but they told us she was 
dead, and took us in to see what seemed so cold, and so 
unlike anything we had ever seen or known of her. 

" Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. 
I remember his golden curls and little black frock, as he 
frolicked like a kitten in the sun in ignorant joy. 

"I remember the mourning dresses, the tears of the 
older children, the walking to the burial ground, and some- 
body's speaking at the grave, and the audible sobbing of 
the family; and then all was closed, and we little ones, to 
whom it was so confused, asked the question where she 
was gone, and would she never come back ? 

"They told us at one time that she had been laid in the 
ground, at another that she had gone to heaven; where- 
upon Henry, putting the two things together, resolved to 
dig through the ground and go to heaven to find her; for, 
being discovered under sister Catherine's window one 
morning digging with great zeal and earnestness, she called 
to him to know what he was doing, and, lifting his curly 
head with great simplicity, he answered, ' Why, I 'm going 
to heaven to find ma. ' 

"Although mother's bodily presence disappeared from 
our circle, I think that her memory and example had more 
influence in moulding her family, in deterring from evil 
and exciting to good, than the living presence of many 
mothers. It was a memory that met us everywhere, for 
every person in the town, from the highest to the lowest, 
seemed to have been so impressed by her character and life 



CHARACTER OF MRS. BEECHER 13 

that they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon 
us. 

"Even our portly old black washerwoman, Candace, 
who came once a week to help off the great family wash, 
would draw us aside, and, with tears in her eyes, tell us 
of the saintly virtues of our mother. 

"I recollect that at first the house was full of little 
works of ingenuity, and taste, and skill, which had been 
wrought by her hand, — furniture adorned with painting ; 
pictures of birds and flowers, done with minutest skill ; fine 
embroidery, with every variety of lace and cobweb stitch; 
exquisite needle-work, which has almost passed out of 
memory in our day. I remember the bobbin and pillows 
with which she made black lace. Many little anecdotes 
were told me among her friends of her ceaseless activity 
and contrivance in these respects. 

"One thing in her personal appearance every one spoke 
of, — that she never spoke in company or before strangers 
without blushing. She was of such great natural sensi- 
tiveness and even timidity that, in some respects, she never 
could conform to the standard of what was expected of a 
pastor's wife. In the weekly female prayer-meetings she 
could never lead the devotions. Yet it was not known 
that anybody ever expressed criticism or censure on this 
account. It somehow seemed to be felt that her silent 
presence had more power than the audible exercises of an- 
other. Such impression has been given me by those who 
have spoken of this peculiarity. 

"There was one passage of Scripture always associated 
with her in our minds in childhood; it was this: ' Ye are 
come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, to the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
angels; to the general assembly and Church of the first 
born, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. ' 

"We all knew that this was what our father repeated to 



14 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE 

her when she was dying, and we often repeated it to each 
other. It was to that we felt we Tnust attain, though we 
scarcely knew how. In every scene of family joy or sor- 
row, or when father wished to make an appeal to our 
hearts which he knew we could not resist, he spoke of 
mother. 

"I remember still the solemn impression produced on 
my mind when I was only about eight years old. I had 
heen violently seized with malignant scarlet fever, and lain 
all day insensible, and father was in an agony of appre- 
hension for my life. I remember waking up just as the 
beams of the setting sun were shining into the window, 
and hearing his voice in prayer by my bedside, and of his 
speaking of ' her blessed mother who is now a saint in 
heaven,' and wondering in my heart what that solemn 
appeal might mean. 

"I think it will be the testimony of all her sons that 
her image stood between them and the temptations of 
youth as a sacred shield; that the hope of meeting her in 
heaven has sometimes been the last strand which did not 
part in hours of fierce temptation; and that the remem- 
brance of her holy life and death was a solemn witness of 
the truth of religion, which repelled every assault of skep- 
ticism, and drew back the soul from every wandering to 
the faith in which she lived and died." 

Of this sad year after her mother's death, Catherine 
Beecher wrote: "The experience of this year in our family 
history was similar to that of a landscape in sunshine sud- 
denly overcast with heavy clouds. The gentle, contented, 
smiling, healthful mother was gone, and the sunlight of 
our home departed with her to return no more." 

Dr. Beecher married twice again during his long life, 
but Roxana was the wife of his young heart and the true 
companion of his thought. His piety and purpose found 
support and development in her companionship. 



CHILDHOOD 15 

The prayer of this mother's heart was, that all her sons 
should devote themselves to the ministry, and this wish 
was accomplished. What her prayer for her daughters 
may have been we cannot know, but her influence was such 
that she left, as Mrs. Stowe always believed, an indelible 
impression upon her own life. 

Doubtless it was a recognition of Harriet's sensitive 
nature, and the harm which might be done by leaving her 
in the shadow of the family grief, which led her aunt to 
carry her away to Nutplains, after her mother's death, 
to make a long visit. It was good for her to be there, 
although the intellectual food seems to have been rather 
strong for her years. A love of wit and humor was as 
natural to her as to her grandmother, and, as we have seen, 
they enjoyed much together. 

Mrs. Stowe writes of this visit: "Among my earliest 
recollections are those of a visit to Nutplains immediately 
after my mother's death. Aunt Harriet Foote, from 
whom I was named, who was with mother during all her 
last sickness, took me home to stay with her. I can now 
remember, at the close of what seemed to me a long day's 
ride, arriving after dark at a lonely little white farmhouse, 
and being brought into a large parlor where a cheerful 
wood fire was crackling, partly burned down into great 
heavy coals. I was placed in the arms of an old lady, 
who held me close and wept silently, a thing at which I 
marveled, for my great loss was already faded from my 
childish mind. But I could feel that this dear old grand- 
mother received me with a heart full of love and sorrow. 
I recall still her bright white hair, the benign and tender 
expression of her venerable face, and the great gold ring 
she wore, which seemed so curious to my childish eyes. 
It was her wedding-ring, as she often told me afterward. 
There was a little tea-table set out before the fire, and 
Uncle George came in from his farm-work, and sat down 
with grandma and Aunt Harriet to tea. 



16 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

"After supper I remember grandma's reading prayers, 
as was her custom, from a great prayer-book, which was 
her constant companion. To this day certain portions of 
the evening service never recur to me without bringing up 
her venerable image and the tremulous tones of her aged 
voice, which made that service have a diiferent effect on 
me from any other prayers I heard in early life. 

"Then I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a 
large room, on one side of which stood the bed appropri- 
ated to her and me, and on the other that of my grand- 
mother. The beds were curtained with a printed India 
linen, which had been brought home by my seafaring 
uncle; and I recollect now the almost awe-struck delight 
with which I gazed on the strange mammoth plants, with 
great roots and endless convolutions of branches, in whose 
hollows appeared Chinese summer-houses, adorned with 
countless bells, and perched jauntily aloft, Avith sleepy- 
looking Mandarins smoking, and a Chinaman attendant 
just in the act of ringing some of the bells with a hammer. 
Also here and there were birds bigger than the mandarins, 
with wide-open beaks just about to seize strange-looking 
insects; and a constant wonder to my mind was why the 
man never struck the bells, nor the bird ever caught the 
insect. 

"My Aunt Harriet was no common character. A more 
energetic human being never undertook the education of 
a child. Her ideas of education were those of a vigorous 
Englishwoman of the old school. She believed in the 
Church, and, had she been born under that regime, would 
have believed in the king stoutly, although, being of the 
generation following the Revolution, she was a not less 
stanch supporter of the Declaration of Independence. 

"According to her views, little girls were to be taught 
to move very gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say 
' Yes, ma'am ' and ' No, ma'am, ' never to tear their clothes, 



LIFE AT NUTPLAINS 17 

to sew and to knit at regular hours, to go to church on 
Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home and 
be catechised. 

" I remember those catechisings, when she used to place 
my little cousin Mary and myself bolt upright at her knee, 
while black Dinah and Harvey the bound-boy were ranged 
at a respectful distance behind us ; for Aunt Harriet always 
impressed it upon her servants ' to order themselves lowly 
and reverently to all their betters, ' — a portion of the 
Church Catechism which always pleased me, particularly 
when applied to them, as it insured their calling me ' Miss 
Harriet,' and treating me with a degree of consideration 
which I never enjoyed in the more democratic circle at 
home. 

"I became a proficient in the Church Catechism, and 
gave my aunt great satisfaction by the old-fashioned grav- 
ity and steadiness with wliich I learned to repeat it. 

"As my father was a Congregationalist minister, I be- 
lieve Aunt Harriet, though the highest of High-Church 
women, felt some scruples of delicacy as to whether it was 
desirable my religious education should be entirely out of 
the sphere of my birth, and therefore, when the catecheti- 
cal exercise was finished, and my cousin, who was a lamb 
of the true Church, dismissed, she would say to me, 
* Niece, you have to learn another catechism, because your 
father is a Presbyterian minister,' and would therefore 
endeavor to make me commit to memory the Assembly's 
Catechism. 

"At this lengthening of exercises I secretly murmured. 
I was rather pleased at the first question in the Church 
Catechism, which is certainly quite level to any child's 
capacity, * What is your name 1 ' It was such an easy, 
good start. I could say it so loud and clear; and I was 
accustomed to compare it with the first question in the 
Primer, ' What is the chief end of man 1 ' as vastly more 



18 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE 

difficult for me to remember. In fact, between my aunt's 
secret unbelief and my own childish impatience of too 
much catechism, the matter was indefinitely postponed 
after a few ineffectual attempts, and I was overjoyed to 
hear her announce privately to grandmother that she 
thought it would be time enough for Harriet to learn the 
Presbyterian Catechism when she went home. 

" In her own private heart my aunt did not consider my 
father an ordained minister; and, as she was a woman 
who always acted up to her beliefs, when on a visit to our 
family she Avould walk straight past his meeting-house, as 
she always called it, to the little Episcopal church, where 
the Gospel was dispensed in what she considered an orderly 
manner. It was a triumph of principle, for she was very 
fond and proud of father, and had a lively, acute mind 
peculiarly fitted to appreciate his preaching, which she 
would often have been very glad to hear. 

"She generally contrived, in speaking of these subjects 
before me, to restrain herself, and probably was not aware 
of the sharpness with which little ears sometimes attend to 
conversations which are not meant for them to hear, and 
perhaps was entirely unaware that I pondered in my mind 
a declaration I once heard her make, that ' many persons 
out of the Episcopal Church would be saved at last, but 
that they were resting entirely on uncovenanted mercy. ' 

"I really think grandma stood a little in awe of Aunt 
Harriet. Occasionally she would give me privately her 
opinion of her when she was out of the room, — opinions 
always very charming in my eyes, because they took my 
part in every childish grief, and in all those disciplinary 
sorrows which Aunt Harriet often thought the wisest ex- 
pression of love to little girls. When I broke my needles, 
tore my clothes, lost my thimble, slipped out of the house 
and sauntered by the river when I should have been sew- 



AUNT HARRIET 19 

ing, grandmother was always an accessory after the fact; 
and when she could not save me from condign punishment, 
would comfort me with the private assurance that ' I was 
a poor child, and that Harriet needed punishing a great 
deal more herself than I did. ' 

"It is said that such indulgences are dangerous to chil- 
dren, but I cannot remember that they ever did me any 
harm. In the main, I thought that justice and right were 
on Aunt Harriet's side; yet 1 loved grandma for the exces- 
sive tenderness that blinded her to all my faults. I did 
not really believe her sweet and comfortable sayings to be 
exactly true; I only saw how much she must love, to be 
so blind to all my faults. 

"But grandmother was not by any means a weak woman. 
Her mind was active and clear; her literary taste just, her 
reading extensive. My image of her in later years is of 
one always seated at a great round table covered with 
books, among which nestled her work-basket. Among 
these, chiefest, her large Bible and prayer-book; Lowth's 
"Isaiah," which she knew almost by heart; Buchanan's 
"Researches in Asia;" "Bishop Heber's Life;" and Dr. 
Johnson's " Works," which were great favorites with 
her. . . . 

"We used to read much to her: first many chapters of 
the Bible, in which she would often interpose most graphic 
comments, especially in the Evangelists, where she seemed 
to have formed an idea of each of the apostles so distinct 
and dramatic that she would speak of them as acquaintances. 
She would always smile indulgently at Peter's remarks. 
'There he is again, now; that 's just like Peter. He 's al- 
ways so ready to put in ! ' She was fond of having us read 
Isaiah to her in Lowth's translation, of which she had read 
with interest all the critical notes. 

"Concerning Dr. Johnson's Christian character, she once 
informed me, with some degree of trouble, that she had 



20 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

had a discussiou with my brother Edward, and that he 
thought that President Edwards was a better Christian 
than Dr, Johnson. * He sent me his life to read, ' she 
said, ' and I have read it, and he was a very good Chris- 
tian; but, after all, I doubt if he could have written better 
prayers than these of Dr. Johnson's. Now just hear this,' 
she would say, and then she would read prayers which 
that great master of English, that deep and melancholy 
nature, certainly made wonderfully forcible and touching. 

"Sometimes, in later years, after my brothers and I 
were grown up, we, being trained Congregationalists, 
would raise with our uncle and with Aunt Harriet the 
controverted questions of our respective faiths, which 
would be mooted with great vim. Grandma was always 
secretly uneasy lest these controversies should lead to any 
real disunion of feeling. 

" On one occasion, after her hearing had becortie slightly 
impaired, a wordy battle had been raging round her for 
some time, which, as she could not understand what we 
said, and as we seemed to be getting more and more ear- 
nest, moved her solicitude very deeply. At last she called 
one of my brothers to her, and said, ' There, now, if you 
have talked long enough, I want you to read something to 
me, ' and gave him that eloquent chapter in Isaiah which 
begins, 'Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory 
of the Lord is risen upon thee; ' and goes on to describe 
the day when the whole earth shall be full of the glory of 
the Lord. Her face, while he was reading, was like a 
transparency, luminous with internal light. At the close 
she said, * Bishop Heber tells in his memoirs how, off in 
India, there were four ministers of Christ met together, 
all of different denominations, and they read this chapter 
together, and found then there was one thing they all 
agreed in exactly. ' 

"We all looked at each other and smiled, for we were 



NUTPLAINS 21 

conscious that our discussion had been in the most perfect 
love and good will. 

"One other thing must be confessed: in her secret heart 
grandma was, and always remained, a Tory. In her this 
took no aggressive form. It was only the clinging of a 
loving and constant nature to that which in childhood and 
youth she had learned to love and venerate. On these 
points she always observed a discreet silence in the family 
circle, but made a confidante of me in my early childhood. 
When, after hearing King George abused roundly one day 
by some patriotic American, she took the first opportunity 
to tell me privately that ' she didn't believe that the king 
was to blame ; ' and then she opened her old English 
prayer-book, and read in a trembling voice the old prayers 
for the king and queen, and all the royal family, and told 
me how it grieved her when they stopped reading them in 
all the churches. She supposed it was all right, she said, 
but she couldn't bear to give it up; they might have some 
other way to settle it. 

"When afterward I ventured to say something to Aunt 
Harriet about it, she laughingly asserted that grandma was 
always an old Tory among them. I think, in the recollec- 
tions of all the children, our hours spent at Nutplains were 
the golden hours of our life. Aunt Harriet had precisely 
the turn which made her treasure every scrap of a family 
relic and history. And even those of the family who had 
passed away forever seemed still to be living at Nutplains, 
so did she cherish every memorial, and recall every action 
and word. There was Aunt Catherine's embroidery; there 
were Aunt Mary's paintings and letters; there the things 
which Uncle Samuel had brought from foreign shores; 
frankincense from Spain, mats and baskets from Mogadore, 
and various other trophies locked in drawers, which Aunt 
Harriet displayed to us on every visit. 



22 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE 

"At Nutplains our mother, lost to us, seemed to live 
again. We saw her paintings, her needlework, and heard 
a thousand little sayings and doings of her daily life. And 
so dear was everything that belonged to grandmother and 
our Nutplains home, that the Episcopal service, even 
though not well read, was always chosen during our visits 
there in preference to our own. It seemed a part of Nut- 
plains and of the life there. 

"There was also an interesting and well-selected library, 
and a portfolio of fine engravings; and, though the place 
was lonely, yet the cheerful hospitality that reigned there 
left them scarcely ever without agreeable visitors. 

"The earliest poetry that I ever heard were the ballads 
of Walter Scott, which Uncle George repeated to Cousin 
Mary and me the first winter that I was there. The story 
of the black and white huntsman made an impression on 
me that I shall never forget. His mind was so steeped in 
poetical literature that he could at any time complete any 
passage in Burns or Scott from memory. As for graver 
reading, there was Rees's Cyclopedia, in which I suppose 
he had read every article, and which was often taken down 
when I became old enough to ask questions, and passages 
pointed out in it for my reading. 

"All these remembrances may explain why the lonely 
little white farmhouse under the hill was such a Paradise 
to us, and the sight of its chimneys after a day's ride was 
like a vision of Eden. In later years, returning there, I 
have been surprised to find that the hills around were so 
bleak and the land so barren; that the little stream near 
by had so few charms to uninitiated eyes. To us, every 
juniper-bush, every wild sweetbrier, every barren sandy 
hillside, every stony pasture, spoke of bright hours of love, 
when we were welcomed back to Nutplains as to our mo- 
ther's heart." 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 23 

During this first long visit after her mother's death 
Harriet distinguished herself by committing to memory 
a wonderful assortment of hymns, poems, and scriptural 
passages, which enabled her, possessed as she was of a 
very retentive mind, to use and quote these valuable ad- 
juncts of her writings during her mature life. She was 
only five years old the following winter when she and 
Henry, hand in hand, walked every day to Ma'am Kil- 
bourne's school. He was a chubby little fellow, and the 
weather appeared to make no difference to either of them. 
"With the ability to read, Mrs. Stowe said, in after years, 
there seemed to germinate in herself the intense literary 
longing that belonged to her from that time. The desire 
for expression so early developed reminds us of her father 
in his great age, when he exclaimed, " I am sick, because I 
cannot reveal the feelings of my heart ; " and again when 
he took up his rusty fiddle, thrummed the strings, played 
a note or two unsatisfied, and said, "If I could only play 
what I hear inside of me, I'd beat Paganini." In those 
days there were few books for children. Harriet used to 
go searching hungrily through barrels of old sermons and 
pamphlets stored in a corner of the garret, looking for 
something "good to read." It seemed to her there were 
thousands of the most unintelligible things. An appeal 
"on the unlawfulness of a man marrying his wife's sister" 
turned up as she investigated, "by twos, or threes, or 
dozens, till her soul despaired of finding an end. At last 
her patient search was rewarded, for at the very bottom of 
a barrel of musty sermons she discovered an ancient vol- 
ume of * The Arabian Nights. ' With this her fortune 
was made, for in these most fascinating of fairy tales the 
imaginative child discovered a well-spring of joy that was 
all her own. When things went astray with her, when 
her brothers started ofi" on long excursions, refusing to 
take her with them, or in any other childish sorrow, she 



24 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE 

had only to curl herself up in some snug corner and sail 
forth on her bit of enchanted carjDet into fairyland to 
forget all her griefs." 

In this way the nature of the child developed itself, 
as the leaf quietly breaks away from the sheath that bound 
it, — as the fruit at last forms and ripens on the bough. 
She was not an easy child for the careful women of the 
household to deal with, but her father held her in his heart 
and watched her growth. Grandmother Foote, too, as we 
have seen, had her own ideas of Aunt Harriet's strict 
methods of government, and the dreaming child found shel- 
ter under her wing at Nutplains as well as in her father's 
study at Litchfield. 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE AT LITCHFIELD 

Two years after the death of his wife, Dr. Beecher mar- 
ried Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine. He had the 
good fortune to meet this lady in Boston, whither he had 
gone to preach, and where she was visiting a married sister. 
Miss Porter belonged to the best society of the time. One 
of her brothers was first governor of the new State of Maine, 
one was twice appointed minister to Great Britain. Of 
herself it was said that "her facility, gracefulness, amenity, 
and dignity were proverbial, and were the same in all her 
relations. Her sense of rectitude, order, and propriety 
was exquisite." Mrs. Stowe describes the advent of the 
new mother : — 

"I was about six years old, and slept in the nursery 
with my two younger brothers. We knew that father was 
gone away somewhere on a journey, and was expected 
home, and therefore the sound of a bustle or disturbance 
in the house more easily awoke us. We heard father's 
voice in the entry, and started up in our little beds, crying 
out as he entered our room, ' Why, here 's pa! ' A cheer- 
ful voice called out from behind him, 'And here 's ma! * 

"A beautiful lady, very fair, with bright blue eyes, and 
soft auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, 
came into the room smiling, eager, and happy-looking, and, 
coming up to our beds, kissed us, and told us that she 
loved little children, and that she would be our mother. 
We wanted forthwith to get up and be dressed, but she 
pacified us with the promise that we should tind her in 
the morning. 



26 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1819 

"Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter 
impression. The next morning, I remember, we looked 
at her with awe. She seemed to us so fair, so delicate, so 
elegant, that we were almost afraid to go near her. We 
must have been rough, red-cheeked, hearty country chil- 
dren, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly 
dainty and neat in all her ways and arrangements; and 
I remember I used to feel breezy, and rough, and rude in 
her presence. We felt a little in awe of her, as if she 
were a strange princess rather than our own mamma; but 
her voice was very sweet, her ways of moving and speak- 
ing very graceful, and she took us up in her lap and let us 
play with her beautiful hands, which seemed wonderful 
things, made of pearl, and ornamented with strange rings." 

There is a letter from the second Mrs. Lyman Beecher 
describing each of the children of Eoxana Foote. She 
characterizes every one with a discerning touch. Towards 
the last she says: "Harriet and Henry come next, and 
they are always hand in hand. They are as lovely children 
as I ever saw ; amiable, affectionate, and very bright. " 

There is a fragment of a letter written two years later 
by one of the children, which gives a glimpse of the family : 

"Mamma is well, and don't laugh any more than she 
used to. Catherine goes on just as she always did, making 
fun for everybody. George is as usual. Harriet makes 
just as many wry faces, is just as odd, and loves to be 
laughed at as much as ever. Henry does not improve 
much in talking, but speaks very thick. Charles is the 
most mischievous little fellow I ever knew. He seems to 
do it for the very love of it; he is punished and punished 
again, but it has no effect. He is the same honest little 
boy, and I love him dearly. Poor little Fred has been 
quite unwell, but has got better now ; he grows more and 
more interesting every day. Now for the boarders. Miss 
M is just as amiable and lovely as when you was here. 



1820] THE NEW MOTHER 27 

Miss B loves fun still. Miss W and L same 



as usual. Miss C the most obliging and useful of the 

family. To conclude, the old cat has got the consump- 
tion." 

Henry Ward Beecher, in later life, described the effect 
upon his childish mind of the new mother: "My dear 
mother — not one that gave me birth, for I do not re- 
member to have ever seen her face, but she that brought 
me up, she that did the office-work of a mother, if ever 
a mother did; slie that, according to her ability, performed 
to the uttermost her duties — was a woman of profound 
veneration, rather than of a warm and loving nature. 
Therefore her prayer was invariably a prayer of deep yearn- 
ing reverence. I remember well the impression which it 
made on me. There was a mystic influence about it. A 
sort of sympathetic hold it had upon me, but still I always 
felt Avhen I went to prayer, as though I were going into a 
crypt, where the sun was not allowed to come; and I 
shrunk from it." 

In these days of continual oversight of the education of 
children it is well to recall the long hours Harriet Beecher 
was allowed to pass in her father's study. We recognize 
the good to the developed man which comes from solitude 
and opportunity to make his own discoveries; Avhat then 
shall we say of the value to a child, whose mind receives 
impressions like that of a sensitive plate, when allowed to 
range freely and seek the thing he loves. 

"High above all the noise of the house," wrote Mrs. 
Stowe, "this room had to me the air of a refuge and a 
sanctuary. Its walls were set round from floor to ceiling 
with the friendly, quiet faces of books, and there stood my 
father's great writing-chair, on one arm of which lay open 
always his Cruden's Concordance and his Bible. Here I 
loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner 
with my favorite books around me. I had a kind of shel- 



28 HARKIET BEECHEE STOWE [1820 

tered feeling as I thus sat and watched my father writing, 
turning to his books and speaking from time to time to 
himself, in a loud earnest whisper. I vaguely felt that he 
was about some holy and mysterious work quite beyond 
my little comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb 
him by question or remark. 

"The books ranged around filled me, too, with a solemn 
awe. On the lower shelves were enormous folios, on 
whose backs I spelled in black letters, ' Lightfoot Opera, ' 
a title whereat I wondered, considering the bulk of the 
volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly social 
rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles 
of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart. 
There were 'Bell's Sermons,' 'Bennett's Inquiries,' 
' Bogue's Essays,' ' Toplady on Predestination,' ' Boston's 
Four-fold State,' ' Law's Serious Call,' and other works of 
that kind. These I looked over wistfully day after day, 
without even a hope of getting something interesting out 
of them. The thought that father could read and under- 
stand things like these filled me with a vague awe, and I 
wondered if I should ever be old enough to know what it 
was all about. 

"But there was one of my father's books that proved a 
mine of wealth to me. It was a happy hour when he 
brought home and set up in his bookcase Cotton Mather's 
' Magnalia, ' in a new edition of two volumes. What won- 
derful stories those! Stories, too, about my own country. 
Stories that made me feel the very ground I trod on to be 
consecrated by some special dealing of God's providence." 

About this time, somebody seems to have read aloud 
the Declaration of Independence. " I had never heard it 
before," wrote Mrs. Stowe, "and even now had but a 
vague idea of what was meant by some parts of it. Still 
I gathered enough from the recital of the abuses and inju- 
ries that had driven my nation to this course to feel myself 



1821] EARLY DEVELOPMENT 29 

swelling with indignation, and ready with all my little 
mind and strength to applaud the concluding passage, 
which Colonel Talmadge rendered with resounding majesty. 
I was as ready as any of them to pledge my life, fortune, 
and sacred honor for such a cause. The heroic element 
was strong in me, having come down hy ordinary genera- 
tion from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it 
made me long to do something, I knew not what: to fight 
for my country, or to make some declaration on my own 
account. " 

When the little girl was ten or eleven years old, she 
went to the Litchfield Academy, where the teachers appear 
to have won her love and confidence. Mrs. Stowe says of 
this period, "Much of the training and inspiration of my 
early days consisted not in the things I was supposed to 
he studying, but in hearing, while seated unnoticed at my 
desk, the conversation of Mr. Brace with the older classes. 
There, from hour to hour, I listened with eager ears to 
historical criticisms and discussions, or to recitations in 
such works as * Paley's Moral Philosophy, ' ' Blair's Rheto- 
ric, ' ' Allison on Taste, ' all full of most awakening sugges- 
tions to my thoughts. 

"Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers I ever knew in the 
faculty of teaching composition. The constant excitement 
in which he kept the minds of his pupils, the wide and 
varied regions of thought into which he led them, formed 
a preparation for composition, the main requisite for which 
is to have something which one feels interested to say." 

It was evidently one of Harriet's earliest joys at school 
to be allowed to write compositions. Her young soul was 
already overflowing with thought and feeling. She was 
only twelve years old when a school exhibition took place, 
whereat three of the best compositions were read aloud be- 
fore "all the literati of Litchfield." 

"When my turn came," said Mrs. Stowe in after years, 



30 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1822 

"I noticed that father, who was sitting on high hy Mr. 
Brace, brightened and looked interested, and at the close 
I heard him ask, * Who wrote that composition 1 ' * Your 
daughter, sir,' was the answer. It was the proudest mo- 
ment of my life. There was no mistaking father's face 
when he was pleased, and to have interested him was past 
all juvenile triumphs." 

The subject, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be 
proved by the Light of Nature," was indeed an extraordi- 
nary one to be treated by a child of twelve years, but the 
manner of the treatment is that of undeveloped genius. 
Her arguments, drawn from history, from Addison, and 
other writers, show no mental indigestion. At the end 
she says: "Never till the blessed light of the Gospel 
dawned on the borders of the pit, and the heralds of the 
Cross proclaimed ' Peace on earth and good will to men, ' 
was it that bewildered and misled man was enabled to trace 
his celestial origin and glorious destiny." 

The winter of her eleventh year Harriet passed at Nut- 
plains, where Catherine wrote to her in February : — 

"I suppose you will be very glad to hear you have a 
little sister at home. We have no name for her yet. 

"We all want you at home very much, but hope you 
are now where you will learn to stand and sit straight, and 
hear what people say to you, and sit still in your chair, 
and learn to sew and knit well, and be a good girl in every 
particular; and if you don't learn while you are with Aunt 
Harriet, I am afraid you never will." 

The time had now come when Harriet was to leave 
Litchfield, not permanently at first, but as it proved, she 
was there very little after her twelfth year. She loved 
the place ! it made an indelible impression on her mind, 
and in later life she says of it : — 

"My earliest recollections of Litchfield are those of its 
beautiful scenery, which impressed and formed my mind 



1823] LOVE OF NATURE 31 

long before I had words to give names to my emotions, or 
could analyze my mental processes. I remember standing 
often in the door of our house and looking over a distant 
horizon, where Mount Tom reared its round blue head 
against the sky, and the Great and Little Ponds, as they 
were called, gleamed out amid a steel-blue sea of distant 
pine groves. To the west of us rose a smooth-bosomed 
hill called Prospect Hill; and many a pensive, wondering 
hour have I sat at our play-room window, watching the 
glory of the wonderful sunsets that used to burn them- 
selves out, amid voluminous wreathings, or castellated 
turrets of clouds, — vaporous pageantry proper to a moun- 
tainous region. 

"Litchfield sunsets were famous, because perhaps 
watched by more appreciative and intelligent eyes than the 
sunsets of other mountain towns around. The love and 
notice of nature was a custom and habit of the Litchfield 
people; and always of a summer evening the way to Pro- 
spect Hill was dotted with parties of strollers who went up 
thither to enjoy the evening. 

" On the east of us lay another upland, called Chestnut 
Hills, whose sides were wooded with a rich growth of 
forest- trees; whose changes of tint and verdure, from the 
first misty tints of spring green, through tlie deepening 
hues of summer, into the rainbow glories of autumn, was 
a subject of constant remark and of pensive contemplation 
to us children. We heard them spoken of by older people, 
pointed out to visitors, and came to take pride in them as 
a sort of birthright. 

" Seated on the rough granite flag-steps of the east front 
door with some favorite book, — if by chance we could find 
such a treasure, — the book often fell from the hand while 
the eyes wandered far off into those soft woody depths 
with endless longings and dreams, — dreams of all those 
wild fruits, and flowers, and .sylvan treasures which some 



32 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1823 

Saturday afternoon's ramble had shown us lay sheltered in 
those enchanted depths. There were the crisp apples of 
the pink azalea, — honeysuckle apples we called them ; there 
were scarlet wintergreen berries; there were pink shell 
blossoms of trailing arbutus, and feathers of ground pine; 
there were blue, and white, and yellow violets, and crows- 
foot, and bloodroot, and wild anemone, and other quaint 
forest treasures. 

"Between us and those woods lay the Bantam River, — 
a small, clear rocky stream, pursuing its way through 
groves of pine and birch, now so shallow that we could 
easily ford it by stepping from stone to stone, and again, 
in spots, so deep and wide as to afford bathing and swim- 
ming room for the young men and boys of the place. 
Many and many a happy hour we wandered up and down 
its tangled, rocky, and ever-changing banks, or sat under 
a thick pine bower, on a great granite slab called Solitary 
Eock, round which the clear brown waters gurgled. 

"At the north of the house the horizon was closed in 
with distant groves of chestnut and hickory, whose waving 
tops seemed to have mysteries of invitation and promise to 
our childhood. I had read, in a chance volume of Ges- 
ner's ' Idyls, ' of tufted groves, where were altars to Apollo, 
and where white-robed shepherds played on ivory flutes, 
and shepherdesses brought garlands to hang round the 
shrines, and for a long time I nourished a shadowy impres- 
sion that, could I get into those distant northern groves, 
some of these dreams would be realized. These fairy vi- 
sions were, alas! all dissolved by an actual permission to 
make a Saturday afternoon's excursion in these very groves, 
which were found to be used as goose-pastures, and to be 
destitute of the flowery treasures of the Chestnut Hills 
forests. 

"My father was fond of excursions with his boys into 
the forests about for fishing and hunting. At first I re- 



1824] COUNTRY PLEASUKES 33 

member these only as something pertaining to father and 
the older boys, they being the rewards given for good con- 
duct. I remember the regretful interest with which I 
watched their joyful preparations for departure. They 
were going to the Great Pond — to Pine Island — to that 
wonderful blue pine forest which I could just see on the 
horizon, and who knew what adventures they might meet ! 
Then the house all day was so still; no tramping of laugh- 
ing, wrestling boys, — no singing and shouting ; and per- 
haps only a long seam on a sheet to be oversewed as the 
sole means of beguiling the hours of absence. And then 
dark night would come down, and stars look out from the 
curtains, and innuendoes would be thrown out of children 
being sent to bed. and my heart would be rent with an- 
guish at the idea of being sent off before the eventful ex- 
pedition had reported itself. And then what joy to hear 
at a distance the tramp of feet, the shouts and laughs of 
older brothers ; and what glad triumph when the successful 
party burst into the kitchen with long strings of perch, 
roach, pickerel, and bullheads, with waving blades of 
sweet-flag, and high heads of cat-tail, and pockets full of 
young wintergreen, of which a generous portion was be- 
stowed always upon me. These were the trophies, to my 
eyes, brought from the land of enchantment. And then 
what cheerful hurrying and scurrying to and fro, and 
waving of lights, and what cleaning of fish in the back 
shed, and what calling for frying-pan and gridiron, over 
which father solemnly presided; for to his latest day he 
held the opinion that no feminine hand could broil or fry 
fish with that perfection of skill which belonged to himself 
alone, as king of woodcraft and woodland cookery. 

" I was always safe against being sent to bed for a happy 
hour or two, and patronized with many a morsel of the 
supper which followed, as father and brothers were gener- 
ally too flushed with victory to regard very strictly dull 
household rules. 



34 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 

"Somewhat later, I remember, were the expeditions for 
chestnuts and walnuts in the autumn, to which all we 
youngsters were taken. I remember the indiscriminate 
levy which on such occasions was made on every basket 
the house contained, which, in the anticipated certainty of 
a great harvest to bring home, were thought to be only 
too few. I recollect the dismay with which our second 
mother, the most ladylike and orderly of housekeepers, 
once contemplated the results of these proceedings in her 
well arranged linen-room, where the contents of stocking 
baskets, patch baskets, linen baskets, yarn baskets, and 
thread baskets were all pitched into a promiscuous heap by 
that omnipotent marauder, Mr. Beecher, who had accom- 
plished all this confusion with the simple promise to bring 
the baskets home full of chestnuts. 

"What fun it was, in those golden October days, when 
father dared William and Edward to climb higher than he 
could, and shake down the glossy chestnuts ! To the very 
last of his life, he was fond of narrating an exploit of his 
climbing a chestnut-tree that grew up fifty feet without 
branches slantwise over a precipice, and then whirling him- 
self over the abyss to beat down the chestnuts for the chil- 
dren below. ' That was a thing,' he said, ' that I would n't 
let any of the boys do.' And those chestnuts were had 
in everlasting remembrance. I verily believe that he val- 
ued himself more on some of these exploits than even his 
best sermons. 

"My father was famous for his power of exciting family 
enthusiasm. Whenever he had a point to carry or work 
to be done, he would work the Avhole family up to a pitch 
of fervent zeal, in which the strength of each one seemed 
quadrupled. For instance: the wood of the family used 
to be brought in winter on sleds, and piled up in the yard, 
exactly over the spot where father wished in early spring 
to fix his cucumber and melon frames; for he always made 



1823] HEK father's INFLUENCE 35 

it a point to have cucumbers as soon as Dr. Taylor, who 
lived in New Haven, and had much warmer and drier land ; 
and he did it by dint of contrivance and cucumber frames, 
as aforesaid. Of course, as all this wood was to be cut, 
split, and carried into the wood-house before an early gar- 
den could be started, it required a miracle of generalship 
to get it done, considering the immense quantity required 
in that climate to keep an old windy castle of a house com- 
fortable. How the axes rung, and the chips flew, and the 
jokes and stories flew faster; and when all was cut and 
split, then came the great work of wheeling in and piling; 
and then I, sole little girl among so many boys, was sucked 
into the vortex of enthusiasm by father's well-pointed de- 
claration that he ' wished Harriet was a boy, she would 
do more than any of them. ' 

"I remember putting on a little black coat which I 
thought looked more like the boys, casting needle and 
thread to the wind, and working almost like one possessed 
for a day and a half, till in the afternoon the wood was 
all in and piled, and the chips swept up. Then father 
tackled the horse into the cart, and proclaimed a grand 
fishing party down to Little Pond, And how we all floated 
among the lily-pads in our boat, christened ' The Yellow 
Perch,' and every one of us caught a string of fish, which 
we displayed in triumph on our return. 

"There were several occasions in course of the yearly 
housekeeping requiring every hand in the house, which 
would have lagged sadly had it not been for father's in- 
spiring talent. One of these was the apple-cutting season, 
in the autumn, when a barrel of cider apple-sauce had to 
be made, which was to stand frozen in the milk-room and 
cut out from time to time in red glaciers, which, when 
duly thawed, supplied the table. The work was done in 
the kitchen, an immense brass kettle hanging over the 
deep fireplace, a bright fire blazing and snapping, and all 



36 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1823 

hands, children and servants, employed on the full baskets 
of apples and quinces which stood around. I have the 
image of my father still as he sat working the apple-peeler. 

* Come, George,' he said, ' I '11 tell you what we '11 do to 
make the evening go off. You and I '11 take turns, and 
we '11 see who '11 tell the most out of Scott's novels ; ' for 
those were the days when the ' Tales of my Landlord ' and 

* Ivanhoe ' had just appeared. And so they took them, 
novel by novel, reciting scenes and incidents, which kept 
the eyes of all the children wide open, and made the work 
go on without flagging. 

"Occasionally he would raise a point of theology on 
some incident narrated, and ask the opinion of one of his 
hoys, and run a sort of tilt with him, taking up the wrong 
side of the question for the sake of seeing how the young- 
ster could practice his logic. If the party on the other 
side did not make a fair hit at him, however, he would 
stop and explain to him what he ought to have said. 
'The argument lies so, my son; do that, and you'll trip 
me up. ' Much of his teaching to his children was in this 
informal way. 

"In regard to Scott's novels, it will be remembered 
that, at the time they came out, novel writing stood at so 
low an ebb that most serious-minded people regarded novel 
reading as an evil. Such a thing as a novel was not to be 
found in our house. And I well recollect the despairing 
and hungry glances with which I used to search through 
father's library, meeting only the same grim sentinels. 
There, to be sure, was ' Harmer on Solomon's Song,' which 
I read, and nearly got by heart, because it told about the 
same sort of things I had once read of in the 'Arabian 
Nights. ' And there was the ' State of the Clergy during 
the French Revohition, ' which had horrible stories in it 
stranger than fiction. Then there was a side-closet full 
of documents, a weltering ocean of pamphlets, in which I 



1824] SIK WALTEK SCOTT 37 

dug and toiled for hours to be repaid by disinterring a 
delicious morsel of a ' Don Quixote ' that had once been a 
book, but was now lying in forty or fifty disjecta membra, 
amid Calls, Appeals, Sermons, Essays, Reviews, Replies, 
and Rejoinders. The turning up of such a fragment 
seemed like the rising of an enchanted island out of an 
ocean of mud. 

"Great was the light and joy, therefore, when father 
spoke ex cathedra: * George, you may read Scott's novels. 
I have always disapproved of novels as trash, but in these 
is real genius and real culture, and you may read them.' 
And we did read them; for in one summer we went 
through ' Ivanhoe' seven times, and were both of us able 
to recite many of its scenes, from beginning to end, verba- 
tim. 

"One of father's favorite resorts was Aunt Esther's 
room, about half a minute's walk from our house. How 
well I remember that room ! a low-studded parlor, looking 
out on one side into a front yard shaded with great elm- 
trees; on the other, down a green hillside, under the 
branches of a thick apple-orchard. The floor was covered 
with a neat red and green carpet; the fireplace resplendent 
with the brightest of brass andirons, small hanging book- 
shelves over an old-fashioned mahogany bureau; a cush- 
ioned rocking chair; a neat cherry tea-table; and an old- 
fashioned looking-glass, with a few chairs, completed the 
inventory, I must not forget to say that a bed was turned 
up against the wall, and concealed in the daytime by a 
decorous fall of clr'ntz drapery. 

"Aunt Esther herself, with her sparkling hazel eyes, 
her keen, ready wit, and never-failing flow of anecdote 
and information, interested us even more than the best 
things she could produce from her closet. She had read 
on all subjects — chemistry, philosophy, physiology, but 



38 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 

especially on natural history, where her anecdotes were 
inexhaustible. If any child was confined to the house by 
sickness, her recounting powers were a wonderful solace. 
I once heard a little patient say, ' Only think ! Aunt 
Esther has told me nineteen rat stories all in a string ! ' 
In fact we thought there was no question we could ask her 
that she could not answer. 

"I remember once we said to her, 'Aunt Esther, how 
came you to know so much about every sort of thing ? ' 
' Oh, ' said she, ' you know the Bible says the works of the 
Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure 
therein. Now I happened to have pleasure therein, and 
so I sought them out. ' 

" It was here that father came to read her his sermons, 
or the articles that he was preparing for the ' Christian 
Spectator ; ' for he was a man who never could be satisfied 
to keep anything he wrote to himself. First he would 
read it to mother, and then he would say, ' I think now 
I '11 go over and read it to Esther. ' 

"It was in Aunt Esther's room that I first found a stray 
volume of Lord Byron's poetry, which she gave me one 
afternoon to appease my craving for something to read. It 
was the ' Corsair. ' I shall never forget how it astonished 
and electrified me, and how I kept calling to Aunt Esther 
to hear the wonderful things that I found in it, and to 
ask what they could mean. 'Aunt Esther, what does it 
mean — " One I never loved enough to hate " ? ' 

"' Oh, child, it's one of Byron's strong expressions.' 

"I went home absorbed and wondering about Byron; 
and after that I listened to everything that father and 
mother said at the table about him. I remember hearing 
father relate the account of his separation from his Avife; 
and one day, hearing him say, with a sorrowful countenance, 
as if announcing the death of some one very interesting 
to him, ' My dear, Byron is dead — gone. ' After being 



1824] BYRON'S DEATH 39 

awhile silent, he said, ' Oh, I 'm sorry that Byron is dead. 
I did hope he would live to do something for Christ. 
What a harp he might have swept ! ' The whole impres.- 
sion made upon me by the conversation was solemn and 
painful. 

"I remember taking my basket for strawberries that after- 
noon, and going over to a strawberry field on Chestnut 
Hill. But I was too dispirited to do anything; so I lay 
down among the daisies, and looked up into the blue sky, 
and thought of that great eternity into which Byron had 
entered, and wondered how it might be with his soul. 

"The next Sunday father preached a funeral sermon 
on this text: 'The name of the just is as brightness, but 
the memory of the wicked shall rot. ' The main idea of 
the sermon was that goodness only is immortal, and that 
no degree of brilliancy and genius can redeem vice from 
perishing. He spoke of the different English classics, and 
said that the impurities of Sterne and Swift had already 
virtually consigned them almost to oblivion. Then after 
a brief sketch of Byron's career, and an estimate of his 
writings, he said that some things he had written would 
be as imperishable as brass; but that the impurities of 
other portions of his works, notwithstanding the beauty of 
the language, would in a few years sink them in oblivion. 
He closed with a most eloquent lamentation over the 
wasted life and misused powers of the great poet. 

"I was eleven years old at the time, and did not gen- 
erally understand father's sermons, but this I understood 
perfectly, and it has made an impression on me that has 
never been effaced. 

"If it be recollected that the audience to whom he 
preached was largely composed of the students of the law 
school, sons of the first families from all parts of the 
Union, and graduates of the first colleges, and the pupils 
of the female school, also from the first families in all parts 



40 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 

of the nation, and that the Byronic fever was then at its 
height among the young people, it will be seen how valu- 
able may have been the moral discriminations and sugges- 
tions of such a sermon. 

"Father often said, in after years, that he wished he 
could have seen Byron, and presented to his mind his 
views of religious truth. He thought if Byron ' could 
only have talked with Taylor and me, it might have got 
him out of his troubles; ' for never did men have more 
utter and complete faith in the absolute verity and po\/er 
of what they regarded as Gospel doctrine than my father 
and the ministers with whom he acted. And though he 
firmly believed in total depravity, yet practically he never 
seemed to realize that people were unbelievers for any 
other reason than for want of light, and that clear and able 
arguments would not at once put an end to skepticism. 

"With all that was truly great among men he felt a 
kindred sympathy. Genius and heroism would move him 
even to tears. I recollect hearing him read aloud Milton's 
account of Satan's marshaling his forces of fallen angels 
after his expulsion from heaven. The description of 
Satan's courage and fortitude was read with such evident 
sympathy as quite enlisted me in his favor, and in the 
passage, — 

* Millions of spirits, for his fault amerced 
Of heaven, and from eternal splendors tlung 
For his revolt, yet faithful how they stood, 
Their glory withered; as when heaven's fire 
Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, 
With singed top, their stately growth, though bare, 
Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared 
To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend 
From wing to wing, and half inclose him round 
With all his peers: attention held them mute. 
Thrice he essayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, 
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth, ' — 

On reaching this point father burst into tears himself, and 
the reading ended. 



1824] DK. BEECHER'S SYMPATHY WITH GENIUS 41 

"He had always, perhaps on the same principle, an in- 
tense admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, which he never 
cared to disguise. He was wont to say that he was a 
glorious fellow, and ought to have succeeded. The criti- 
cisms on his moral character, ambition, unscrupulousness, 
etc., he used to meet by comparing him with the Bourbons 
Avhom he supplanted, — ' not a whit better morally, and 
imbecile to boot. ' Of the two, he thought it better that 
a wise and able bad man should reign than a stupid and 
weak bad man. He never altogether liked Dr. Channing's 
article on Napoleon. ' Why rein his character up, ' he 
said, ' by the strict rules of Christian perfection, when you 
never think of applying it to the character of any other 
ruler or general of the day 1 ' 

"The fact is, that his sympathy with genius was so in- 
tense, especially executive genius, that it created what 
might almost be called a personal affection toward the great 
leader, and with it was blent somewhat of the anxiety of 
the pastor, the habitual bishop of souls, for a gifted but 
erratic nature. His mind was greatly exercised about the 
condition of the emperor's soul, and he read every memoir 
emanating from St. Helena with the earnest desire of 
shaping out of those last conversations some hope for his 
eternal future. 

"Father was very fond of music, and very susceptible 
to its influence; and one of the great eras of the family 
in my childish recollection, is the triumphant bringing 
home from New Haven a fine-toned upright piano, which 
a fortunate accident had brought within the range of a 
poor country minister's means. The ark of the covenant 
was not brought into the tabernacle with more gladness 
than this magical instrument into our abode. 

"Father soon learned to accompany the piano with his 
violin in various psalm tunes and Scotch airs, and brothers 



42 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 

Edward and William to perform their part on the flute. 
So we had often domestic concerts, which, if they did not 
attain to the height of artistic perfection, filled the house 
with gladness. 

"One of my most decided impressions of the family as 
it was in my childish days was of a great household in- 
spired by a spirit of cheerfulness and hilarity, and of my 
father, though pressed and driven with business, always 
lending an attentive ear to anything in the way of life and 
social fellowship. My oldest sister, whose life seemed a 
constant stream of mirthfulness, was his favorite and com- 
panion, and he was always more than indulgent toward 
her pranks and jokes." 

In a letter to her son, written in 1886, speaking of this 
period of her life, Mrs. Stowe says: "Somewhere between 
my twelfth and thirteenth year I was placed under the 
care of my elder sister Catherine, in the school that she 
had jvist started in Hartford, Connecticut. When I en- 
tered the school there were not more than twenty-five 
scholars in it, but it afterwards numbered its pupils by 
the hundreds. The schoolroom was on Main Street, 
nearly opposite Christ Church, over Sheldon & Colton's 
harness store, at the sign of the two white horses. I 
never shall forget the pleasure and surprise which these 
two white horses produced in my mind when I first saw 
them. One of the young men who worked in the rear of 
the harness store had a most beautiful tenor voice, and it 
was my delight to hear him singing in school hours : — 

'When in cold oblivion's shade 
Beauty, wealth, and power are laid, 
When, around the sculptured shrine, 
Moss shall cling and ivy twine, 
Where immortal spirits reign. 
There shall we all meet again.' 

"As my father's salary was inadequate to the wants of 
his large family, the expense of my board in Hartford was 



1824] SCHOOL DAYS 43 

provided for by a species of exchange. Mr. Isaac D. Bull 
sent a daughter to Miss Pierce's seminary in Litchfield, 
and she boarded in my father's family in exchange for my 
board in her father's family. If my good, refined, neat, 
particular stepmother could have chosen, she could not 
have found a family more exactly suited to her desires. 
The very soul of neatness and order pervaded the whole 
establishment. 

"The mother of the family gave me at once a child's 
place in her heart. A neat little hall chamber was allotted 
to me for my own, and a well made and kept single bed 
was given me, of which I took daily care with awful satis- 
faction. If I was sick nothing could exceed the watchful 
care and tender nursing of Mrs. Bull. In school my two 
most intimate friends were the leading scholars. They 
had written to me before I came and I had answered their 
letters, and on my arrival they gave me the warmest wel- 
come. One was Catherine Ledyard Cogswell, daughter of 
the leading and best-loved of Hartford physicians. The 
other was Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Chris- 
tian woman who was a widow. 

"Catherine and Georgiana were reading Virgil when I 
came to the school. I began the study of Latin alone, 
and at the end of the first year made a translation of 
Ovid in verse, which was read at the final exhibition of 
the school, and regarded, I believe, as a very creditable 
performance. I was very much interested in poetry, and 
it was my dream to be a poet. I began a drama called 
* Cleon. ' The scene was laid in the court and time of the 
emperor Nero, and Cleon was a Greek lord residing at 
Nero's court, who, after much searching and doubting, at 
last comes to the knowledge of Christianity." 

For a girl of her age this drama is indeed remarkable. 



44 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 

The little books in which the fragments of the play were 
written are now before me, and I can seem to see the 
young girl exciting herself over the scenes as they appeared 
to her imagination. The following extracts will give a 
hint of her growing power. The play is prefaced by a map 
of the ground around Olympia, drawn by her own hand. 
She indicates the situation of the city, the temple of Ju- 
piter, the sacred olive-tree, whence victors were crowned, 
the way of the processions, the treasurer's house, the 
Hippodrome, the seats of the judges, Alphseus Eiver, and 
much beside. 

The drama opens in a street of Rome. 

Enter Lentulus, Lucullus, and others. 
Lentulus. And so you missed the banquet — 't is a pity ! 
You would have seen a new sight in those days. 
Lucullus. Why — was 't uncommon ? 
Len. Jupiter, that it was ! why, this same Cleon, 
He is a perfect prince in entertainments. 

Such show of plates and cups both gold and silver, 
Such flaming rainbows of all colored stones. 
Such wine, such music. . . . 
Luc. And so the emperor himself was there. 



He takes to this young lord with sj)ecial favor. 

We shall live twice as fast while he is here. 
Len. By Bacchus then we shall be lived to death. 
I 'm almost out of breath with living now. 

Luc. Cleon seeks pleasure with a ravening thirst. 

Diversion is his labor and he works 
With hand and foot and soul both night and day 
He throws out money with so flush a hand 
As makes e'en Nero's waste seem parsimony. 



1825] POETIC EXPRESSION" 45 

Scene. Clean's house. An apartment splendidly fur- 
nished. Clean reclining on a caucJi. 
Enter Slave. 

Slave. My lord, an aged man doth wait to see you. 
Clean. Well, have him up. lExit Slave. 

In nature's name what now ! 

Enter Diagoras. 

Clean. Ha! may I trust my eyes, Diagoras ! 

Dia. I am Diagoras if thou art Cleon. 

Clean. Why then thou art, but wherefore eye me so? 
Sit down and contemplate me at your leisure. 

Dia. Thou dost not seem the same that once I knew. 

Clean. Why, that's the truth — for since that time, good 
sire 
Nature hath made me present of ten years, 
And much hath been rubbed off or out of me 
In the rough jostle of this worthy world. 



I pray you to sit down. 
Dia. There is no seat. 

Clean. Why, thou hast lost thy eyes, good sire, I think ; 

Thou 'st a fair choice between some thirty couches, 
Phrygian and Grsecian and of every name. 
Dia. Oh, then these beds adorned with pearls and gold 
Are made to sit on. Pray you pardon me ; 
I am a simple man, used to plain things. 

Clean. Ah, I divine thou art displeased, good master. 

As it is there is no choice between two evils : 
Either to rest thy philosophic feet 
Upon this most profanely glittering floor 
Which as thou seest is all inlaid with gems, 
Or rest thyself on these aforesaid beds. 
Nay, I but jested ; look not sad, good father, 
Thou knowest Cleon's reckless tongue of old; 
I do assm-e thee of a hearty welcome. 
And pray you sit that I may see thee longer. 

\_Seats him on a couch. 
Dia. But I am sad for what I see and hear. 



46 HAEKIET BEECHEK STOWE [1825 

I hear thou art the common talk for waste, 

And that in riot and loose luxury 

Thou dost outstrip even these degenerate days. 



And thou companion of the very scum, 
The very dross and dregs of all mankind ; 

Cleon. Which is the Emperor ! 

Dia. Be that as it may, such is the tale of thee ; 
Which I discredited until I came 
To look upon thee with my personal eyes ; 
And I have questioned much . . . 
Is this the Athenian Cleon ? Is this he 
Who drank philosophy and worshiped virtue ? 
This he who triumphed in the Olympic race 
Followed by wondering eyes ? . . . 
Rememberest thou the glory of those days ? 

Cleon. Good master ! I am even as you see, 
A most degenerate and apostate thing 
Convicted utterly. . . . 

Dia. But canst thou tamely sink into a brute ? 



Cleon. 'T is but anticipating transmigration. 
And then, if ever I am called to that 
I shall behave the more respectably 
For having practiced somewhat in this world. 

Dia. I do not wish to hear thy mockery. 

Oh, could thy noble brother from the dead 
Look up, how would his high-born spirit burn 
To see thee groveling in this filthy sty. 
Cleon \_much moved~\. 

'T is well ! 'T is well ! Thou shouldst have spoke 

of him 
My brother . . . 

You find me, it is true, embedded here. 
Sunk as you say in this luxurious slough. 



Would that there were no vestige of high hopes, 
No ghosts of happier moments to return, 



1825] CLEON 47 

No need to labor in such desperate case. 

It is my curse that I have had all things. 

The things that satisfy the common crowd 
I have possessed and desperately striven 
To bend my soul to satisfaction with them. 

Scene changes. 

And what said Cleon ? Steady as Heaven 
He answered with a decorous majesty 
Declaring in so many words his pm-pose, 
And willing to abide whate'er should come. 
Why, Nero could have stood a fiery answer, 
But this severe composure madded him. 

His face grew livid and he stamped his foot 
And bade the slaves bring in the torture. 
The worst of us were scarce prepared for that. 

Scene: Cleon, Nero, 
Cleon, weak and faint, led in by two soldiers. 

Nero. Sit down. Lord Cleon. 

Cleon. I can stand. 

Nero. My lord, we have bethought us since last night, 
Regretting much that reverence for the gods 
By thee attacked so fired our mind with zeal 
As to outstep the limits of our mercy. 
We would that gentler measures had been tried 
Or thine avowal in less open day, 
Less in the very teeth of our commands. 

Cleon. Grieve not, my liege, for you have scarcely wronged 
me. 

Nero. There have been few fi'equenters of our court 
On whom our eye hath borne such kind regard. 
Thyself doth know how we have chosen thee 
To be the prime companion of our revels, 



48 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1825 

From which hath grown a friendship of whose strength 
We knew not till of late ; for when last night, 
The fumes of wine dispelled and om-selves cool, 
Our very heart was shaken with remorse. 



Nero will ask thee pardon of his wrong ; 
Thy friend and not thy prince behold in him. 

Cleon. My sovereign, Cleon hath no way complained. 

Nero. But here, my lord, our mind is much perplexed. 
We have forbid and interdict this faith 
As what we have good cause to know is ill, 
Infecting men with pestilential fumes. 
Transforming them to haters of the Gods. 

We would give tolerance to the freest thought 
Wert not that we have lately given to justice 
The sect and faith which thou canst not embrace 
Save 'gainst our face — against our very laws. 

We are thy friend and not disposed to hear 

That which might chafe us to severity. 

Of which the gods do know we 've had enough. 

My lord, we cannot think that you will hold it. 
We are persuaded of your better reason 
To be a follower of a crazy Jew. 
Cleori [starting up]. 

I could sit still to hear myself reviled. 
But not my sovereign .... 
I will not hold the right of drawing breath 
Unless — 
Nero. These are most decorous fruits of holy faith ! 

Cleon. I stand rebuked, my lord, both before thee 

And Him who is thy King no less than mine, 
For whose sake I would reverence all forms. 

Nero. Thou art resolved to trespass on forbearance, 
Yet we will still forbear and seek to conquer 



1825] DKAMATIC GIFT 49 

By mildness more than force. . . • 

Since this name moves you, we will say no more. 

What need we say. Suppose you be a Christian, 

Why need all nature know it ; be you quiet, 

You shall have private tolerance ; hold your peace 

And worship what you will out of my sight. 



Cleon. But then, if I am questioned of my faith ? 
Nero. Art thou so versed in smooth decoying phrase 

And cannot turn off blank enquiry? 

But we can put you in a post of honor 
So that all men shall wink upon thy will. 

Cleon. My lord, I scarce can trust myself to answer. 

Since I have heard such degradation named. 
In place of open bold apostasy, 

Thou dost propose an hourly, daily lie. 

It is my settled purpose while I live 
To leave no word or argument untried 
To win all men to reverence Him. 



"I filled blank book after blank book," Mrs. Stowe 
says, "with this drama. It filled my thoughts sleeping 
and waking. One day sister Catherine pounced down 
upon me, and said that I must not waste my time writing 
poetry, but discipline my mind by the study of Butler's 

* Analogy. ' So after this I wrote out abstracts from the 
' Analogy, ' and instructed a class of girls as old as myself, 
being compelled to master each chapter just ahead of the 
class I was teaching. About this time I read Baxter's 

* Saint's Rest.' I do not think any book afi'ected me more 
powerfully. As I walked the pavements I used to wish 
that they might sink beneath me if only I might find my- 
self in heaven. I was at the same time very much inter- 



50 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE [1825 

ested in Butler's 'Analogy,' for Mr. Brace used to lecture 
on such themes when I was at Miss Pierce's school at 
Litchfield. I also began the study of French and Italian 
with a Miss Degan, who was born in Italy. 

" It was about this time that I first believed myself to 
be a Christian. I was spending my summer vacation at 
home, in Litchfield. I shall ever remember that dewy, 
fresh summer morning. I knew that it was a sacramental 
Sunday, and thought with sadness that when all the good 
people should take the sacrificial bread and wine I should 
be left out. I tried hard to feel my sins and count them 
up; but what with the birds, the daisies, and the brooks 
that rippled by the way, it was impossible. I came into 
church quite dissatisfied with myself, and as I looked upon 
the pure white cloth, the snowy bread and shining cups 
of the communion table, thought with a sigh: ' There 
won't be anything for me to-day; it is all for these grown- 
up Christians. ' Nevertheless, when father began to speak, 
I was drawn to listen by a certain pathetic earnestness in 
his voice. Most of father's sermons were as unintelligible 
to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But sometimes he 
preached what he was accustomed to call a ' frame sermon ; ' 
that is, a sermon that sprung out of the deep feeling of the 
occasion, and which consequently could be neither premed- 
itated nor repeated. His text was taken from the Gospel 
of John, the declaration of Jesus : ' Behold, I call you no 
longer servants, but friends. ' His theme was Jesus as a 
soul friend offered to every human being. 

"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and dialectic 
subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and tender language 
of the great love of Christ and his care for the soul. He 
pictured Him as patient with our errors, compassionate 
with our weaknesses, and sympathetic for our sorrows. 
He went on to say how He was ever near us, enlightening 
our ignorance, guiding our wanderings, comforting our 



1825] THE SECOND BIRTH 51 

sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by in- 
gratitude, till at last He should present us faultless before 
the throne of his glory with exceeding joy. 

"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I needed 
just such a friend, I thought to myself. Then the awful 
fact came over me that I had never had any conviction 
of my sins, and consequently could not come to Him. I 
longed to cry out ' I will, ' when father made his passionate 
appeal, ' Come, then, and trust your soul to this faithful 
friend.' Like a flash it came over me that if I needed 
conviction of sin, He was able to give me even this also. 
I would trust Him for the whole. My whole soul was 
illumined with joy, and as I left the church to walk home, 
it seemed to me as if Nature herself were hushing her 
breath to hear the music of heaven. 

"As soon as father came home and was seated in his 
study, I went up to him and fell in his arms, saying, 
' Father, I have given myself to Jesus, and He has taken 
me. ' I never shall forget the expression of his face as he 
looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was so 
sweet, so gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a 
landscape. ' Is it so ? ' he said, holding me silently to his 
heart, as I felt the hot tears fall on my head. ' Then has 
a new flower blossomed in the kingdom this day. ' " 

If she could have been let alone, her son says in his 
valuable compilation of Mrs. Stowe's Letters and Jour- 
nals, and taught "to look up and not down, forward and 
not back, out and not in," this religious experience might 
have gone on as sweetly and naturally as the opening of 
a flower in the gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately 
this was not possible at that time, when self-examination 
was carried to an extreme that was calculated to drive a 
nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted. First, 
even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might be 
something wrong in the case of a lamb that had come into 



52 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 

the fold without being first chased all over the lot by the 
shepherd; great stress being laid, in those days, on what 
was called "being under conviction." Then also the 
pastor of the First Church in Hartford, a bosom friend of 
Dr. Beecher, looked with melancholy and suspicious eyes 
on this unusual and doubtful path to heaven, — but more 
of this hereafter, Harriet's conversion took place in the 
summer of 1825, when she was fourteen, and the following 
year, April, 1826, Dr. Beecher resigned his pastorate in 
Litchfield to acce]5t a call to the Hanover Street Church, 
in Boston. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at Guil- 
ford, dated Hartford, March 4, Harriet writes : — 

"You have probably heard that our home in Litchfield 
is broken up. Papa has received a call to Boston, and 
concluded to accept, because he could not support his 
family in Litchfield. He was dismissed last week Tues- 
day, and will be here (Hartford) next Tuesday with 
mamma and Isabel. Aunt Esther will take Charles and 
Thomas to her house for the present. Papa's salary is to 
be $2,000 and $500 settlement. 

"I attend school constantly and am making some pro- 
gress in my studies. I devote most of my attention to 
Latin and to arithmetic, and hope soon to prepare myself 
to assist Catherine in the school." 

This breaking up of the Litchfield home led Harriet, 
under her father's advice, to seek to connect herself with 
the First Church of Hartford. Accordingly, accompanied 
by two of her school friends, she went one day to the 
pastor's study to consult with him concerning the contem- 
plated step. The good man listened attentively to the 
child's simple and modest statement of Christian expe- 
rience, and then with an awful, though kindly solemnity 
of speech and manner said, " Harriet, do you feel that if 
the universe should be destroyed (awful pause) you could 
be happy with God alone ? " After struggling in vain, in 



1826] CATHERINE BEECHER 53 

her mental bewilderment, to fix in her mind some definite 
conception of the meaning of the sounds which fell on her 
ear like the measured strokes of a bell, the child of four- 
teen stammered out, "Yes, sir." 

"You realize, I trust," continued the doctor, "in some 
measure at least, the deceitfulness of your heart, and that 
in punishment for your sins God might justly leave you to 
make yourself as miserable as you have made yourself sin- 
ful?" 

"Yes, sir," again stammered Harriet. 

Having thus effectually, and to his own satisfaction, 
fixed the child's attention on the morbid and over-sensitive 
workings of her own heart, the good and truly kind-hearted 
man dismissed her with a fatherly benediction. But where 
was the joyous ecstasy of that beautiful Sabbath morning 
of a year ago? Where was that heavenly friend? Yet 
was not this as it should be, and might not God leave her 
"to make herself as miserable as she had made herself 
sinful " ? 

In a letter addressed to her brother Edward, about this 
time, she writes: "My whole life is one continued strug- 
gle : I do nothing right. I yield to temptation almost as 
soon as it assails me. My deepest feelings are very eva- 
nescent. I am beset behind and before, and my sins take 
away all my happiness. But that which most constantly 
besets me is pride, — I can trace almost all my sins back to 
it." 

At this period the influence of her sister Catherine, the 
eldest of Dr. Beecher's children, may be clearly seen. 

Miss Beecher was a woman of singular and original 
power, and from her earliest years exercised strong sway 
over the excitable poetic nature of this younger sister. 
Her own character had been strengthened by much sorrow. 
At the age of twenty-two, having become engaged to Pro- 
fessor Fisher of Yale College, her lover was lost at sea, 



54 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 

the ship which was to have borne him to England being 
wrecked on the Irish coast. 

"Without this incident," writes the Rev. C. E. Stowe, 
" ' The Minister's Wooing ' never would have been written, 
for both Mrs. Marvyn's terrible soul struggles and old 
Candace's direct and effective solution of all religious diffi- 
culties find their origin in this stranded, storm-beaten ship 
on the coast of Ireland, and the terrible mental conflicts 
through which her sister afterward passed, for she believed 
Professor Fisher eternally lost. No mind more directly 
and powerfully influenced Harriet's than that of her sister 
Catherine, unless it Avas her brother Edward's, and that 
which acted with such overwhelming power on the strong, 
unyielding mind of the older sister must have, in time, a 
permanent and abiding influence on the mind of the 
younger, " 

Catherine's bravery was only equalled by her family 
affection; she lent herself to her younger sister's interests 
with peculiar zeal, and took her into the school she had 
founded, where as pupil and teacher Harriet passed the 
early years of her young womanhood. 



CHAPTER III 

BOSTON AND THE HARTFORD SCHOOL 

For several years Dr. Beecher had seen himself running 
aground in Litchfield financially. Therefore when an invi- 
tation came from Boston, urging his presence in that city 
as a last and saving hope for orthodoxy, he made up his 
mind to leave the pleasant places which had become dear to 
him and turn to other fields. His letter of " request for 
dismission " gives a wonderfully frank description of his 
household afi'airs. He read it in full to his congregation. 
He begins : '' When I gave myself to God in the Gospel of 
his Son, it was done with the following views : That all 
expectation of accumulating property for myself and family 
be relinquished, leaving it to God in his own way to take 
care of me when sickness or age should supersede active 
labor. ... I never expected or desired to give my chil- 
dren anything but their own minds and faculties, properly 
cultivated and prepared for active usefulness. . . . With 
these views I gave myself to the ministry, first at East 
Hampton, on Long Island, with a salary of three hundred 
dollars and my firewood, which, after five years, was raised 
to four hundred dollars ; and then, as my family increased, 
proving incompetent, at the end of another five years I 
obtained a dismission, and settled in this place. May 29, 
1810, upon a salary of eight hundred dollars, with an un- 
derstanding that I might calculate upon a voluntary supply 
of wood. Early after my settlement, my wife (of beloved 
memory) informed me from year to year that my income 
did not meet the unavoidable expenses of the family, and 
advised me to communicate the fact to the society." 

Dr. Beecher continues : " I replied that I had come 



56 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE . [1826 

hither with the determination of removing no more, and 
that in my judgment the condition of the society forbade 
a request for the increase of my salary." He then gives 
in detail the efforts made by his wife, who used all her 
little fortune in the attempt to take boarders. This ven- 
ture was a total loss. The two elder children were then 
teaching, and were able to turn their earnings into the 
family coffer, but the sons were all to be educated for the 
ministry, as they showed no talent for anything but study. 
The utmost economy was of no avail, and after much suf- 
fering, when they were at the lowest ebb of their fortunes, 
a letter came from Boston, urging Dr. Beecher to become 
the pastor of the Hanover Street Church, 

"For several days and nights, while agitated by this 
subject, I endured what I shall not attempt to describe. 
... I hope you will do me the justice to believe that I 
have endeavored to conduct uprightly, and in the fear of 
God, and that the friendship between us, which has been 
confirmed by the joys and the sorrows of fifteen years, may 
not all in a moment be sacrificed, but that you will extend 
to me in this heart-breaking moment the consolation of 
believing that I have not forfeited your confidence, your 
afi"ection, and an interest in your prayers." 

In after life, Mrs. Stowe said of this Boston era: "It 
was the high noon of my father's manhood, the flood-tide 
of his powers; and a combination of circumstances in the 
history of Massachusetts brought him in to labor there just 
as a whole generation were on the return-Avave of a great 
moral reaction. The strict theocracy founded by the 
Puritans in the State of Massachusetts had striven by all 
the ingenuity of legislation and institution to impress the 
Calvinistic seal indelibly on all the future generations of 
Massachusetts, so that no man of other opinions should 
minister in the church, or bear office in the State. As in 
Connecticut, so in Massachusetts, a reaction had come in 
and forced open the doors of the State, and rent the sole 



1826] THEOLOGICAL POSITION 57 

power from the clergy; but the revolution had gone deeper 
and farther and extended to ideas and theologies. . . . 
The party, called for convenience Unitarian, . . . con- 
sisted of persons of the most diverse and opposite shades 
of opinion, united only in the profession of not believing 
Calvinism as taught by the original founders of Massachu- 
setts. . . , 

"Calvinism or Orthodoxy was the despised and perse- 
cuted form of faith. It was the dethroned royal family 
wandering like a permitted mendicant in the city where it 
once had held court, and Unitarianism reigned in its stead. 

"All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarian. 
All the trustees and professors of Harvard College were 
Unitarians. All the elite of wealth and fashion crowded 
Unitarian churches. The judges on the bench were Uni- 
tarian, giving decisions by which the peculiar features of 
church organization, so carefully ordained by the Pilgrim 
Fathers, had been nullified. The church, as consisting, 
according to their belief, in regenerate people, had been 
ignored, and all the power had passed into the hands of 
the congregation. This power had been used by the 
majorities to settle ministers of the fashionable and reign- 
ing type in many of the towns of Eastern Massachusetts. 
The dominant majority entered at once into possession of 
churches and church property, leaving the orthodox minor- 
ity to go out into schoolhouses or town halls, and build 
their churches as best they could. Old foundations estab- 
lished by the Pilgrim Fathers for the perpetuation and 
teaching of their own views in theology were seized upon 
and appropriated to the support of opposing views. A 
fund given for preaching an annual lecture on the Trinity 
was employed for preaching an annual attack upon it, and 
the Hollis professorship of divinity at Cambridge was em- 
ployed for the furnishing of a class of ministers whose sole 
distinctive idea was declared warfare with the ideas and 
intentions of the donor. 



58 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 

"So bitter and so strong had been the reaction of a 
whole generation against the too stringent bands of their 
fathers, — such the impulse with which they broke from 
the cords with which their ancestors sought to bind them 
forever. But in every such surge of society, however 
confident and overbearing, there lies the element of a 
counter reaction, and when Dr. Beecher came to Boston 
this element had already begun to assert itself. 

"He had not been in Boston many weeks before every 
leisure hour was beset by people who came with earnest 
intention to express to him those various phases of weary, 
restless, wandering desire and aspiration proper to an ear- 
nest people whose traditional faith has been broken up, 
but who have not outlived the necessity of definite and 
settled belief. From minds of every class, in every circle 
of society, the most fashionable and the most obscure, these 
inquirers were constantly coming with every imaginable 
theological problem, from the inspiration of the Bible out 
through all the minutest ramifications of doctrinal opinion 
or personal religious experience. . . . 

"The effect of all this on my father's mind was to keep 
him at a white heat of enthusiasm. Within a stone's 
throw of our door was the old Copp's Hill burying-ground, 
where rested the bones of the Puritan founders; and, 
though not a man ordinarily given to sentiment or to visit- 
ing of graves, we were never left to forget in any prayer 
of his that the bones of our fathers were before our door. 

"His family prayers at this period, departing from the 
customary forms of unexcited hours, became often upheav- 
ings of passionate emotion such as I shall never forget. 
' Come, Lord Jesus, ' he would say, ' here where the bones 
of the fathers rest, here where the crown has been torn 
from thy brow, come and recall thy wandering children. 
Behold thy flock scattered on the mountain — these sheep. 



1827] DK. BEECHEK's HABITS 59 

what have they done ? Gather them, gather them, good 
Shepherd, for their feet stumble upon the dark mountains. ' 

"Dr. Beecher kept a load of sand in his cellar, to which 
he would run at odd intervals and shovel vigorously, throw- 
ing it from one side the cellar to the other, on his favor- 
ite theory of working off nervous excitement through the 
muscles, and his woodpile and woodsaw were inestimable 
means to the same end. He had, also, in the back yard, 
parallel bars, a single bar, ladder, and other simple gym- 
nastic apparatus, where he would sometimes astonish his 
ministerial visitors by climbing ropes hand over hand, 
whirling over on the single bar. 

"The time that he spent in actual preparation for a 
public effort was generally not long. If he was to preach 
in the evening he was to be seen all day talking with 
whoever would talk, accessible to all, full of everybody's 
affairs, business, and burdens, till an hour or two before 
the time, when he would rush up into his study (which he 
always preferred should be the topmost room of the house), 
and, throwing off his coat, after a swing or two with the 
dumb-bells to settle the balance of his muscles, he would 
sit down and dash ahead, making quantities of hieroglyphic 
notes on small, stubbed bits of paper, about as big as the 
palm of his hand. The bells would begin to ring and still 
he would write. They would toll loud and long, and his 
wife would say, ' He will certainly be late, ' and then would 
be running up and down stairs of messengers to see that 
he was finished, till, just as the last stroke of the bell was 
dying away, he would emerge from the study with his coat 
very much awry, come down the stairs like a hurricane, 
stand impatiently protesting while female hands that ever 
lay in wait adjusted his cravat and settled his coat collar, 
calling loudly the while for a pin to fasten together the 



60 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1827 

stubbed little bits of paper aforesaid, which being duly- 
dropped into the crown of his hat, and hooking wife or 
daughter like a satchel on his arm, away he would start 
on such a race through the streets as left neither brain nor 
breath till the church was gained. Then came the pro- 
cess of getting in through crowded aisles wedged up with 
heads, the bustle, and stir, and hush to look at him, as, 
with a matter-of-fact, business-like push, he elbowed his 
way through them and up the pulpit stairs." 

This period in Boston was the time when Harriet felt 
she drew nearer to her father than at any other period of 
her life; yet she did not go with the family in the first 
instance, but continued her stay at the school in Hartford, 
where she became a teacher long before she ceased to be 
a pupil. 

There are many letters written to her brother Edward, 
begun about this time, which show the unnatural vein into 
which a delicate sympathetic girl could easily fall when 
exposed to influences such as have been described. 

Her brain had already wearied her body in the double 
race for development. The sincerity of her nature is 
beautifully apparent in these letters. The habit of con- 
fession is not one that suited a human soul like hers, accus- 
tomed to seek the Divine throne alone, hand in hand with 
the Divine Son. To her mind there was no earthly inter- 
mediary necessary, nor was there a barrier of eighteen 
hundred years between her life and the life of Christ; she 
only saw a marvelous sequence of time, every day laden 
with new proofs of the necessity and the verity of this 
presence in her world. But the atmosphere of that period 
and the terrible arguments of her father and of her sister 
Catherine were sometimes more than she could endure. 
She says to Edward : — 

"Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon 
we spent together. After that I was not as unhappy as I 



1827] RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 61 

had been, I felt, nevertheless, that my views were very- 
indistinct and contradictory, and feared that if you left me 
thus I might return to the same dark, desolate state in 
which I had been all summer. I felt that my immortal 
interest, my happiness for both worlds, was depending on 
the turn my feelings might take. In my disappointment 
and distress I called upon God, and it seemed as if I was 
heard. I felt that He could supply the loss of all earthly 
love. All misery and darkness were over. I felt as if 
restored, nevermore to fall. Such sober certainty of wak- 
ing bliss had long been a stranger to me. But even then 
I had doubts as to whether these feelings were right, be- 
cause I felt love to God alone without that ardent love for 
my fellow-creatures which Christians have often felt. . . . 
I cannot say exactly what it is makes me reluctant to 
speak of my feelings. It costs me an effort to express 
feeling of any kind, but more particularly to speak of my 
private religious feelings." 

This difficulty in expressing the deepest feelings of 
her heart to another shows already the gathering wave 
which was to break by and by, not in lamentations over 
her own lot, but into a Miserere which was to become a 
Magnificat for the sufferings of the down-trodden of the 
earth, and for their regeneration. Delivered from herself, 
she became a deliverer. Again she writes to her bro- 
ther : — 

" I wish I could describe to you how I feel when I pray. 
I feel that I love God, — that is, that I love Christ, — 
that I find comfort and happiness in it, and yet it is not 
that kind of comfort which would arise from free commu- 
nication of my wants and sorrows to a friend. I some- 
times wish that the Saviour were visibly present in this 
world, that I might go to Him for a solution of some of 
my difficulties. . . . Do you think, my dear brother, 
that there is such a thing as so realizing the presence and 



62 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1827 

character of God that He can supply the place of earthly 
friends 1 I really wish to know what you think of this. 
. . . Do you suppose that God really loves sinners before 
they come to Him ? Some say that we ought to tell them 
that God hates them, that He looks on them with utter 
abhorrence, and that they must love Him before He will 
look on them otherwise. Is it right to say to those who 
are in deep distress, ' God is interested in you ; He feels 
for and loves you ' ? " 

At last came the vacation days when Harriet went to 
Boston to see her family. She writes to Georgiana 
May: — 

"In the first place, on my arrival, I was obliged to 
spend two days in talking and telling news. Then after 
that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I came off to 
Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out 
of spirits and in very trying circumstances. To-morrow 
I return to Boston and spend four or five days, and then 
go to Franklin, where I spend the rest of my vacation. 

"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston, 
and as to my new brother, James, he has nothing to dis- 
tinguish him from forty other babies, except a very large 
pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair complexion, a 
thing which is of no sort of use or advantage to a man or 
boy. 

"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton 
and taking care of the female school, and at the same time 
being of assistance and company for George. On some 
accounts it would not be so pleasant as returning to Hart- 
ford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon this 
point can be definitely decided till I have returned to Bos- 
ton, and talked to papa and Catherine." 

"Harriet reads everything," Edward wrote of his sister, 
" that she can lay hands on, and sews and knits vigorously. " 
Doubtless a memory of these over-working days lingered 



1827] DEPKESSION 63 

with Mrs. Stowe in after life, when she said: "Women 
have no idea how much vitality runs off from the ends of 
their fingers when they should be resting." Neither was 
she a friend of the kindergarten system. "I can't bear to 
see these little animals (for children are hardly more in 
the earliest years) drawing all the vitality out of these 
sweet, delicate young girls just coming into womanhood." 
Of course Froebel and his followers stood aghast, but the 
improvement in method since those early days goes to 
prove that Mrs. Stowe' s common sense was not altogether 
at fault. 

Catherine's affection for Harriet did not allow any symp- 
toms of ill to escape her observation. While the latter 
was at home, Catherine wrote to Dr. Beecher : — 

"I have received some letters from Harriet to-day 
Avhich make me feel uneasy. She says, * I don't know as 
I am fit for anything, and I have thought that I could 
wish to die young, and let the remembrance of me and my 
faults perish in the grave, rather than live, as I fear I do, 
a trouble to every one. You don't know how perfectly 
wretched I often feel: so useless, so weak, so destitute of 
all energy. Mamma often tells me that I am a strange, 
inconsistent being. Sometimes I could not sleep, and 
have groaned and cried till midnight, while in the daytime 
I tried to appear cheerful, and succeeded so well that papa 
reproved me for laughing so much. I was so absent some- 
times that I made strange mistakes, and then they all 
laughed at me, and I laughed, too, though I felt as though 
I should go distracted. I wrote rules; made out a regular 
system for dividing my time; but my feelings vary so 
much that it is almost impossible for me to be regular. ' " 

"But let Harriet 'take courage in her dark sorrows 
and melancholies,' as Carlyle says; Samuel Johnson, too, 
had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt to have, and to 
be in thick darkness generally till the eternal ways and 



64 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1828 

the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and the 
vague abyss of life knits itself up into firmaments for 
them." 

"At the same time (the winter of 1827)," continues her 
son, "Catherine writes to Edward concerning Harriet: 'If 
she could come here (Hartford) it might be the best thing 
for her, for she can talk freely to me. I can get her 
books, and Catherine Cogswell, Georgiana May, and her 
friends here could do more for her than any one in Boston, 
for they love her, and she loves them very much. Geor- 
giana's difficulties are different from Harriet's — she is 
speculating about doctrines, etc. Harriet will have young 
society here all the time, which she cannot have at home, 
and I think cheerful and amusing friends will do much for 
her. I can do better in preparing her to teach drawing 
than any one else, for I best know what is needed. ' " 

Catherine seems to have had a sublime confidence in 
herself which goes more than half way to fight the battles 
of life. This confidence does not come without founda- 
tion. A distinguished theologian of New England said to 
a German professor, concerning one of her publications : — 

"The ablest refutation of Edwards on ' The Will ' which 
was ever written is the work of a woman, the daughter of 
Dr. Lyman Beecher." The worthy Teuton raised both 
hands in undisguised astonishment. "You have a woman 
that can write an able refutation of Edwards on ' The 
Will ? ' God forgive Christopher Columbus for discover- 
ing America ! " 

It does not appear at this juncture that the forces 
worked together for returning Harriet immediately to the 
school. She went instead with her friend Miss May to 
visit her grandmother again, where she seems in some 
degree to have recovered the tone of her spirits. 

In the autumn, however, she returned, and in January 
wrote to her grandmother, Mrs. Foote: "I have been con- 



1828] LOVE OF PAINTING 65 

stantly employed from nine in the morning until after dark 
at night, in taking lessons of a painting and drawing mas- 
ter, with only an intermission long enough to swallow a 
little dinner which was sent to me in the schoolroom. 

" You may easily believe that after spending the day in 
this manner, I did not feel in a very epistolary humor in 
the evening, and if I had been, I could not have written, 
for when I did not go immediately to bed I was obliged 
to get a long French lesson. 

"The seminary is finished, and the school going on 
nicely. Miss Clarissa Brown is assisting Catherine in the 
school. Besides her, Catherine, and myself, there are two 
other teachers who both board in the family with us : one 
is Miss Degan, an Italian lady who teaches French and 
Italian; she rooms with me, and is very interesting and 
agreeable. Miss Hawks is rooming with Catherine. In 
some respects she reminds me very much of my mother. 
She is gentle, affectionate, modest, and retiring, and much 
beloved by all the scholars. ... I am still going on with 
my French, and carrying two young ladies through Virgil, 
and if I have time, shall commence Italian. 

"I am very comfortable and happy. 

" I propose, my dear grandmamma, to send you by the 
first opportunity a dish of fruit of my own painting. Pray 
do not now devour it in anticipation, for I cannot promise 
that you will not find it sadly tasteless in reality. If so, 
please excuse it, for the sake of the poor young artist. I 
admire to cultivate a taste for painting, and I wish to im- 
prove it; it was what my dear mother admired and loved, 
and I cherish it for her sake. I have thought more of this 
dearest of all earthly friends these late years, since I have 
been old enough to know her character and appreciate her 
worth. I sometimes think that, had she lived, I might 
have been both better and happier than I now am, but 
God is good and wise in all His ways." 



66 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1829 

When we consider the somewhat stern character of 
"Sister Catherine," and remember how this young girl 
worked without intermission day in and day out, we see 
that she was quite right; "happier," if not "better," in- 
deed she might have been. 

In the spring of the same year Harriet writes again to 
Edward : — 

"It is only to the most perfect Being in the universe 
that imperfection can look and hope for patience. How 
strange! . . . You do not know how harsh and forbid- 
ding everything seems, compared with His character. All 
through the day in my intercourse with others, everything 
has a tendency to destroy the calmness of mind gained by 
communion with Him. One flatters me, another is angry 
with me, another is unjust to me. 

" You speak of your predilections for literature having 
been a snare to you. I have found it so myself. I can 
scarcely think, without tears and indignation, that all that 
is beautiful and lovely and poetical has been laid on other 
altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a heart en- 
larged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw 
all the graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, 
pathos, and poetry, around sentiments worthy of. them? 
... It matters little what service He has for me. . . . 
I do not mean to live in vain. He has given me talents, 
and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied if He will 
accept them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made 
my mind, and He can teach me to cultivate and exert its 
faculties. " 

Her schemes for going to Groton to help George did not 
meet with approval. In February, 1829, she writes again 
to Edward, as usual, from the school in Hartford : — 

" My situation this winter is in many respects pleasant. 
I room with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary 
Dutton, and Miss Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. 



1829] SCHOOL TEACHING 67 

Miss Button is about twenty, has a fine mathematical 
mind, and has gone as far into that science, perhaps, as 
most students at college. She is also, as I am told, quite 
learned in the languages. . . . Miss Brigham is somewhat 
older; is possessed of a fine mind and most unconquerable 
energy and perseverance of character. From early child- 
hood she has been determined to obtain an education, and 
to attain to a certain standard. "Where persons are deter- 
mined to be anything, they will be. I think, for this 
reason, she will make a first-rate character. Such are my 
companions. We spend our time in school during the 
day, and in studying in the evening. My plan of study 
is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the 
first half hour in the evening; after that the rest of the 
evening is divided between French and Italian. Thus you 
see the plan of my employment and the character of my 
immediate companions. Besides these, there are others 
among the teachers and scholars who must exert an in- 
fluence over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant 
occupation it is to make others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her 
room-mate, a steady, devoted, sincere Christian. . . . Lit- 
tle things have great power over me, and if I meet with 
the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am often ren- 
dered unhappy for days and weeks. ... I wish I could 
bring myself to feel perfectly indiff"erent to the opinions of 
others. I believe that there never was a person more 
dependent on the good and evil opinions of those around 
than I am. This desire to be loved forms, I fear, the great 
motive for all my actions. ... I have been reading care- 
fully the book of Job, and I do not think that it contains 
the views of God which you presented to me. God seems to 
have stripped a dependent creature of all that renders life 
desirable, and then to have answered his complaints from 
the whirlwind; and instead of showing mercy and pity, to 
have overwhelmed him by a display of his power and jus- 



68 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1830 

tice. . . , With the view I received from you, I should 
have expected that a being who sympathizes with his 
guilty, afflicted creatures would not have spoken thus. 
Yet, after all, I do believe that God is such a being as you 
represent Him to be, and in the New Testament I find in 
the character of Jesus Christ a revelation of God as merci- 
ful and compassionate; in fact, just such a God as I need. 

" Somehow or another you have such a reasonable sort 
of way of saying things that, when I come to reflect, I 
almost always go over to your side. . . . My mind is 
often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it that I can- 
not pray, and I become bewildered. The wonder to me 
is, how all ministers and all Christians can feel themselves 
so inexcusably sinful, when it seems to me we all come 
into the world in such a way that it would be miraculous 
if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says in prayer, ' We 
have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our sins, ' 
and I always think when he says it, that we have every- 
thing to offer in extenuation. The case seems to me ex- 
actly as if I had been brought into the world with such a 
thirst for ardent spirits that there was just a possibility, 
thotigh no hope, that I should resist, and then my eternal 
happiness made dependent on my being temperate. Some- 
times when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after all 
I am more to be pitied than blamed, for I have never 
known the time when I have not had a temptation within 
me so strong that it was certain I should not overcome it. 
This thought shocks me, but it comes with such force, and 
so appealingly, to all my consciousness, that it stifles all 
sense of sin." 

The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward: 
"I have never been so happy as this summer. I began it 
in more suffering than I ever before have felt, but there is 
One whom I daily thank for all that suffering, since I hope 
that it has brought me at last to rest entirely in Him." 



1831] DELICATE HEALTH 69 

"So, after four years of struggling and suffering," writes 
her son, "she returns to the place where she started from 
as a child of thirteen. It has been like watching a ship 
with straining masts and storm-beaten sails, buffeted by 
the waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to 
quiet anchorage. There have been, of course, times of 
darkness and depression, but never any permanent loss of 
the religious trustfulness and peace of mind indicated by 
this letter." 

Happily, also, those striving years, when learning and 
imparting were accomplished almost with the same breath, 
at last were ended. Yet a change had been wrought in 
herself, which must not be overlooked; a change wholly 
disregarded in the intensified atmosphere of her life. She 
had not grown to be a strong woman; the apparently 
"healthy and hearty" child had been suffered to think 
and feel, to study and starve (as we may say), starve for 
relaxation, until she became a woman subject to much 
suffering and many inadequacies of physical life. If we 
seem to be brought by a contemplation of this subject to 
a lower level, it is because Mrs. Stowe, by physical weak- 
ness, was often unable to bear the stress and strain of 
her experience, and was brought to a lower level her 
self. She loved more, and consequently suffered more than 
others, and the weight of her suffering was heavier because 
she had grown up, apparently, almost without care either 
from herself or others in behalf of her body. Yet Dr. 
Beecher had already discovered that his own life of intel- 
lectual storm and stress required a physical balance. The 
wood that he sawed, the land that he redeemed, the trees 
that he planted and nourished, all attest to his faith in 
these matters; but, for women, life in the open air was 
not thought to be necessary; the same canons were not 
brought to bear in their behalf. They were always tired 
from the ceaseless round of indoor duties and lack of true 



70 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 

relaxation which should draw neither too much upon the 
brain nor the body. Now every child is regarded from 
the physical point of view as well as the mental. 

As to the spiritual life, perhaps, she was better off than 
the larger number of children of our day. With all our 
boasted education, it is only here and there when some 
holy man or woman appears as an educator for the people 
that Christ is born anew and the principles of his teaching 
are again made to live before us. 

From this period of Harriet Beecher's life we must look 
upon her as a woman far from vigorous, yet laying upon 
herself every burden within her reach. She was twenty- 
one years old when we find her writing to her friend Miss 
May: — 

"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you will 
be prepared to understand the changes through which this 
wonderful ego et me ipse has passed. 

"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner 
world of mine has become worn out and untenable, I have 
at last concluded to come out of it and live in the eternal 

one, and, as F S — • — once advised me, to give up the 

pernicious habit of meditation to the first Methodist minis- 
ter that would take it, and try to mix in society somewhat 
as another person would. 

" ' Hot as non nuviero nisi serenas. ' Uncle Samuel, 
who sits by me, has just been reading the above motto, the 
inscription on a sun-dial in Venice. It strikes me as hav- 
ing a distant relationship to what I was going to say. I 
have come to a firm resolution to count no hours but un- 
clouded ones, and to let all others slip out of my memory 
and reckoning as quickly as possible. . . . 

" I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness 
towards everybody. Instead of shrinking into a corner to 
notice how other people behave, I am holding out my hand 
to the right and to the left, and forming casual or inci- 



1832] SOCIAL INSTINCTS 71 

dental acquaintances with all who will be acquainted with 
me. In this way I find society full of interest and plea- 
sure, — a pleasure which pleaseth me more because it is not 
old and worn out. From these friendships I expect little ; 
therefore generally receive more than I expect. From 
past friendships I have expected everything, and must of 
necessity have been disappointed. The kind words and 
looks and smiles I call forth by looking and smiling are 
not much by themselves, but they form a very pretty 
flower border to the way of life. They embellish the day 
or the hour as it passes, and when they fade they only do 
just as you expected they would. This kind of pleasure 
in acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before. 
When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, ' Have 
they such and such a character, or have they anything 
that might possibly be of use or harm to me ? ' 

"Your long letter came this morning. It revived much 
in my heart. Just think how glad I must have been this 
morning to hear from you. I was glad. ... I thought 
of it through all the vexations of school — I have a letter 
at home; and when I came home from school, I went 
leisurely over it. 

"This evening I have spent in a little social party, — 
a dozen or so, — and I have been zealously talking all the 
evening. When I came to my cold, lonely room, there 
was your letter lying on the dressing-table. It touched 
me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems to me un- 
certain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find you 

as I have found your letter. Oh, my dear G , it is 

scarcely well to love friends thus. The greater part that 
I see cannot move me deeply. They are present, and I 
enjoy them; they pass, and I forget them. But those that 
I love differently ; those that I love ; and oh, how much 
that word means! I feel sadly about them. They may 



72 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 

change; they must die; they are separated from me, and 
I ask myself why should I wish to love with all the pains 
and penalties of such conditions'? I check myself when 
expressing feelings like this, so much has been said of it 
by the sentimental, who talk what they could not have 
felt. But it is so deeply, sincerely so in me, that some- 
times it will overflow. Well, there is a heaven, — a 
heaven, — a world of love, and love after all is the life- 
blood, the existence, the all in all of mind." 



CHAPTER IV 

LIFE IN CINCINNATI AND MARRIAGE 

It was a momentous affair to the family when Dr. 
Beecher decided to leave Boston after six years of service 
and go to Cincinnati. There was a project on foot of 
founding the Lane Theological Seminary at that place, 
but the whole idea was to be given up unless Dr. Beecher 
would become its president, 

"With Dr. Beecher and his wife," writes his grandson, 
"were to go Miss Catherine Beecher, who had conceived 
the scheme of founding in Cincinnati, then considered the 
capital of the West, a female college, and Harriet, who 
was to act as her principal assistant. In the party were 
also George, who was to enter Lane as a student, Isabella, 
James, the youngest son, and Miss Esther Beecher, the 
'Aunt Esther' of the children." 

In the autumn they started upon their long journey, 
and Harriet writes to one of her friends in Hartford: — 

"Well, my dear, the great sheet is out, and the letter 
is begun. All our family are here (in New York), and 
in good health. 

"Father is to perform to-night in the Chatham Theatre! 
* positively for the last time this season! ' I don't know, 
I 'm sure, as we shall ever get to Pittsburgh. Father is 
staying here begging money for the Biblical Literature 
professorship; the incumbent is to be C. Stowe. Father 
begged two thousand dollars yesterday, and now the good 
people are praying him to abide certain days, as he suc- 
ceeds so well. They are talking of sending us off and 



74 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 

keeping him here. I really dare not go and see Aunt 
Esther and mother now; they were in the depths of tribu- 
lation before at staying so long, and now, ' in the lowest 
depths, another deep ' ! Father is in high spirits. He is 
all in his own element, — dipping into books; consulting 
authorities for his oration; going round here, there, every- 
where; begging, borrowing, and spoiling the Egyptians; 
delighted with past success and confident for the future. 

" Wednesday. Still in New York. I believe it would 
kill me dead to live long in the way I have been doing 
since I have been here. It is a sort of agreeable delirium. 
There 's only one thing about it, it is too scattering. I 
begin to be athirst for the waters of quietness." 

Writing from Philadelphia, she adds : — 

"Well, we did get away from New York at last, but it 
was through much tribulation. The truckman carried all 
the family baggage to the wrong wharf, and, after waiting 
and waiting on board the boat, we were obliged to start 
without it, George remaining to look it up. Arrived here 
late Saturday evening, — dull, drizzling weather ; poor 
Aunt Esther in dismay, — not a clean cap to put on, — 
mother in like state; all of us destitute. We went, half 
to Dr. Skinner's and half to Mrs. Elmes's: mother. Aunt 
Esther, father, and James to the former; Kate, Bella, and 
myself to Mr. Elmes's. They are rich, hospitable folks, 
and act the part of Gaius in apostolic times. . . . Our 
trunks came this morning. Father stood and saw them 
all brought into Dr. Skinner's entry, and then he swung 
his hat and gave a ' hurrah, ' as any man would whose wife 
had not had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does 
not succeed very well in opening purses here. Mr. East- 
man says, however, that this is not of much consequence. 
I saw to-day a notice in the ' Philadelphian ' about father, 
setting forth how ' this distinguished brother, with his large 
family, having torn themselves from the endearing scenes 



1832] JOUKNEY TO CINCINNATI 75 

of their home, ' etc. , etc. , ' were going, like Jacob, ' etc. , — 
a very scriptural and appropriate flourish. It is too much 
after the manner of men, or, as Paul says, speaking ' as a 
fool. ' A number of the pious people of this city are coming 
here this evening to hold a prayer-meeting with reference 
to the journey and its object. For this I thank them." 

From Downington she writes : — 

"Here we all are, — Noah and his wife and his sons 
and his daughters, with the cattle and creeping things, all 
dropped down in the front parlor of this tavern, about 
thirty miles from Philadelphia, If to-day is a fair speci- 
men of our journey, we shall find a very pleasant, obliging 
driver, good roads, good spirits, good dinner, fine scenery, 
and now and then some ' psalms and hymns and spiritual 
songs ; ' for with George on board you may be sure of 
music of some kind. Moreover, George has provided 
himself with a quantity of tracts, and he and the children 
have kept up a regular discharge at all the wayfaring 
people we encountered, I tell him he is peppering the 
land with moral influence. 

"We are all well; all in good spirits. Just let me give 
you a peep into our traveling household. Behold us, 
then, in the front parlor of this country inn, all as much 
at home as if we were in Boston. Father is sitting oppo- 
site to me at this table, reading; Kate is writing a billet- 
doux to Mary on a sheet like this; Thomas is opposite, 
writing in a little journal that he keeps; Sister Bell, too, 
has her little record; George is waiting for a seat that 
he may produce his paper and write. As for me, among 
the multitude of my present friends, my heart still makes 
occasional visits to absent ones, — visits full of pleasure, 
and full of cause of gratitude to Him who gives us friends. 
I have thought of you often to-day, my G, We stopped 
this noon at a substantial Pennsylvania tavern, and among 
the flowers in the garden was a late monthly honeysuckle 



76 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 

like the one at North Guilford. I made a spring for it, 
but George secured the finest bunch, which he wore in his 
button-hole the rest of the noon. 

"This afternoon, as we were traveling, we struck up 
and sang * Jubilee. ' It put me in mind of the time when 
we used to ride along the rough North Guilford roads and 
make the air vocal as we went along. Pleasant times 
those. Those were blue skies, and that was a beautiful 
lake, and noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung 
over it. But those we shall look upon ' na mair. ' 

" Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not love 
and leave. Those skies shall never cease to shine, the 
waters of life we shall never be called upon to leave. 
We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to 
come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest, 
and with such words as these let us ' comfort one another 
and edify one another. ' " 

"Harrisburg, Sunday evening. Mother, Aunt Esther, 
George, and the little folks have just gathered into Kate's 
room, and we have just been singing. Father has gone to 
preach for Mr. De Witt. To-morrow we expect to travel 
sixty-two miles, and in two more days shall reach Wheel- 
ing; there we shall take the steamboat to Cincinnati." 

As soon as the first letters from Hartford were received, 
Harriet responded to her sister Mary : — 

"My dear Sister, — The Hartford letter from all 
and sundry has just arrived, and after cutting all manner 
of capers expressive of thankfulness, I have skipped three 
stairs at a time up to the study to begin an answer. My 
notions of answering letters are according to the literal 
sense of the word, — not waiting six months and then 
scrawling a lazy reply, but sitting down the moment you 
have read a letter, and telling, as Dr. Woods says, ' how 
the subject strikes you.' I wish I could be clear that the 



1832] FIRST LETTER FROM HOME 77 

path of duty lay in talking to you this afternoon, but as 
I find a loud call to consider the heels of George's stock- 
ings, I must only write a word or two, and then resume 
my darning-needle. You don't know how anxiously we 
all have watched for some intelligence from Hartford. 
Not a day has passed when I have not been the efficient 
agent in getting somebody to the post-office, and every 
day my heart has sunk at the sound of ' No letters. ' I 
felt a tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your 
handwriting once more, so you see that in your old age 
you can excite quite as much emotion as did the admir- 
able Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles. I hope the 
consideration and digestion of this fact will have its due 
weight in encouraging you to proceed. 

" The fact of our having received said letter is as yet 
a state secret, not to be made known till all our family 
circle * in full assembly meet ' at the tea-table. Then 
what an illumination ! ' How we shall be edified and 
fructified,' as that old Methodist said. It seems too bad 
to keep it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole after- 
noon, but then I have the comfort of thinking that we are 
consulting for their greatest happiness ' on the whole, ' 
which is metaphysical benevolence. 

'* So kind Mrs. Parsons stopped in the very midst of her 
pumpkin pies to think of us 1 Seems to me I can see her 
bright, cheerful face now! And then those well-known 
handwritings! We do love our Hartford friends dearly; 
there can be, I think, no controverting that fact. Kate 
says that the word love is used in six senses, and I am 
sure in some one of them they will all come in. Well, 
good-by for the present. 

"Evening. Having finished the last hole on George's 
black vest, I stick in my needle and sit down to be so- 
ciable. You don't know how coming away from New 
England has sentimentalized us all! Never was there 



78 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 

such an abundance of meditation on our native land, on 
the joys of friendship, the pains of separation. Catherine 
had an alarming paroxysm in Philadelphia which expended 
itself in 'The Emigrant's Farewell.' After this was sent 
off she felt considerably relieved. My symptoms have 
been of a less acute kind, but, I fear, more enduring. 
There! the tea-bell rings. Too bad! I was just going to 
say something bright. Now to take your letter and run! 
How they will stare when I produce it! 

"After tea. Well, we have had a fine time. When 
supper was about half over, Catherine began : ' We have 
a dessert that we have been saving all the afternoon, ' and 
then I held up my letter. ' See here, this is from Hart- 
ford!' I wish you could have seen Aunt Esther's eyes 
brighten, and mother's pale face all in a smile, and father, 
as I unfolded the letter and began. Mrs. Parsons's notice 
of her Thanksgiving predicament caused just a laugh, and 
then one or two sighs (I told you we were growing senti- 
mental!). We did talk some of keeping it (Thanksgiv- 
ing), but perhaps we should all have felt something of the 
text, ' How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange 
land 1 ' Your praises of Aunt Esther I read twice in an 
audible voice, as the children made some noise the first 
time. I think I detected a visible blush, though she 
found at that time a great deal to do in spreading bread 
and butter for James, and shuffling his plate; and, indeed, 
it was rather a vehement attack on her humility, since it 
gave her at least ' angelic perfection, ' if not * Adamic ' (to 
use Methodist technics). Jamie began his Sunday-school 
career yesterday. The superintendent asked him how old 
he was. ' I 'm four years old now, and when it snows 
very hard I shall be five, ' he answered. I have just been 
trying to make him interpret his meaning; but he says, 
' Oh, I said so because I could not think of anything else 
to say.' By the by, Mary, speaking of the temptations 



3833] THE NEW HOUSE 79 

of cities, I liave much solicitude on Jamie's account lest 
he should form improper intimacies, for yesterday or day 
before we saw him parading by the house with his arm 
over the neck of a great hog, apparently on the most ami- 
cable terms possible; and the other day he actually got 
upon the back of one, and rode some distance. So much 
for allowing these animals to promenade the streets, a 
particular in which Mrs. Cincinnati has imitated the 
domestic arrangements of some of her elder sisters, and a 
very disgusting one it is. 

" Our family physician is one Dr. Drake, a man of a 
good deal of science, theory, and reputed skill, but a sort 
of general mark for the opposition of all the medical cloth 
of the city. He is a tall, rectangular, perpendicular sort of 
a body, as stiff as a poker, and enunciates his prescriptions 
very much as though he were delivering a discourse on the 
doctrine of election. The other evening he was detained 
from visiting Kate, and he sent a very polite, ceremonious 
note containing a prescription, with Dr. D. 's compliments 
to Miss Beecher, requesting that she would take the in- 
closed in a little molasses at nine o'clock precisely. 

"The house we are at present inhabiting is the most 
inconvenient, ill-arranged, good-for-nothing, and altogether 
to be execrated affair that ever was put together. It was 
evidently built without a thought of a winter season. 
The kitchen is so disposed that it cannot be reached from 
any part of the house without going out into the air. 
Mother is actually obliged to put on a bonnet and cloak 
every time she goes into it. In the house are two parlors 
with folding doors between them. The back parlor has 
but one window, which opens on a veranda, and has its 
lower half painted to keep out what little light there is. 
I need scarcely add that our landlord is an old bachelor, 
and of course acted up to the light he had, though he left 
little enough of it for his tenants. " 



80 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1833 

The story continues in her letters to Georgiana May : — 

" Bishop Purcell visited our school to-day, and expressed 
himself as greatly pleased that we had opened such an one 
here. He spoke of my poor little geography, ^ and thanked 
me for the unprejudiced manner in which I had handled 
the Catholic question in it, I was of course flattered that 
he should have known anything of the book. 

"How I wish you could see Walnut Hills. It is about 
two miles from the city, and the road to it is as pictur- 
esque as you can imagine a road to be without ' springs 
that run among the hills. ' Every possible variety of hill 
and vale of beautiful slope, and undulations of land set off 
by velvet richness of turf and broken up by groves and 
forests of every outline of foliage, make the scene Arca- 
dian. You might ride over the same road a dozen times 
a day untired, for the constant variation of view caused 
by ascending and descending hills relieves you from all 
tedium. Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth. 
The straight, beavitiful shafts of these trees as one looks 
up the cool green recesses of the woods seem as though 
they might form very proper columns for a Dryad temple. 
There ! Catherine is growling at me for sitting up so late ; 
so ' adieu to music, moonlight, and you. ' I meant to tell 
you an abundance of classical things that I have been 
thinking to-night, but ' woe 's me. ' 

" Since writing the above my whole time has been taken 
up in the labor of our new school, or wasted in the fatigue 
and lassitude following such labor. To-day is Sunday, 
and I am staying at home because I think it is time to 
take some efficient means to dissipate the illness and bad 
feelings of divers kinds that have for some time been 



1 This geography was begun by Mrs. Stowe during the summer of 1832, 
■while visiting her brother William at Newport, R. I. It was completed 
during the winter of 1833, and published by the tirm of Corey, Fairbank 
& Webster, of Cincinnati. 



1833] THE NEW SCHOOL 81 

growing upon me. At present there is and can be very 
little system or regularity about me. About half of my 
time I am scarcely alive, and a great part of the rest the 
slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable preju- 
dice. I have everything but good health. 

"I still rejoice that this letter will find you in good old 
Connecticut — thrice blessed — * oh, had I the wings of a 
dove ' I would be there too. Give my love to Mary H. 
I remember well how gently she used to speak to and smile 
on that forlorn old daddy that boarded at your house one 
summer. It was associating with her that first put into 
my head the idea of saying something to people who were 
not agreeable, and of saying something when I had nothing 
to say, as is generally the case on such occasions." 

Again she writes to the same friend: "Your letter, my 
dear G., I have just received, and read through three 
times. Now for my meditations upon it. What a woman 
of the world you are grown. How good it would be for 
me to be put into a place which so breaks up and precludes 
thought. Thought, intense emotional thought, has been 
my disease. How much good it might do me to be where 
I could not but be thoughtless. . . , 

"Now, Georgiana, let me copy for your delectation a 
list of matters that I have jotted down for consideration 
at a teachers' meeting to be held to-morrow night. It 
runneth as follows. Just hear ! ' About quills and paper 
on the floor; forming classes; drinking in the entry (cold 
water, mind you); giving leave to speak; recess-bell, etc., 
etc. ' ' You are tired, I see, ' says Gilpin, ' so am I, ' and 
I spare you. 

" I have just been hearing a class of little girls recite, 
and telling them a fairy story which I had to spin out as 
it went along, beginning with ' Once upon a time there 
was, ' etc. , in the good old-fashioned way of stories. 

"Recently I have been reading the life of Madame de 



82 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE [1833 

Stael and ' Corinne. ' I have felt an intense sympathy 
with many parts of that book, with many parts of her 
character. But in America feelings vehement and absorb- 
ing like hers become still more deep, morbid, and impas- 
sioned by the constant habits of self-government which the 
rigid forms of our society demand. They are repressed, 
and they burn inward till they burn the very soul, leaving 
only dust and ashes. It seems to me the intensity with 
which my mind has thought and felt on every subject pre- 
sented to it has had this effect. It has withered and ex- 
hausted it, and though young, I have no sympathy with 
the feelings of youth. All that is enthusiastic, all that 
is impassioned in admiration of nature, of writing, of char- 
acter, in devotional thought and emotion, or in the emo- 
tions of affection, I have felt with vehement and absorbing 
intensity, — felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems to 
be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to 
remain in a listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, 
since thought is pain, and emotion is pain." 

It was at this time that Harriet first tried her wings 
before the public of letters. An award of fifty dollars be- 
ing ofi"ered by the editor of " The Western Magazine " for 
a story, she entered into competition, and easily took the 
prize. From this moment she devoted herself to an occu- 
pation more congenial to her nature than any other. She 
also joined a social and literary club, which counted among 
its members nearly all the distinguished men and women 
of Cincinnati. 

She writes of this club to Miss May : — 

" I am wondering as to what I shall do next. I have 
been writing a piece to be read next Monday evening at 
Uncle Sam's soiree (the Semi-Colon). It is a letter pur- 
porting to be from Dr. Johnson. I have been stilting 
about in his style so long that it is a relief to me to come 
down to the jog of common English. Now I think of it, 



1833] SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS 83 

I will just give you a history of my campaign in this 
circle. 

" My first piece was a letter from Bishop Butler, written 
in his outrageous style of parentheses and foggification. 
My second a satirical essay on the modern uses of lan- 
guages. This I shall send to you, as some of the gentle- 
men, it seems, took a fancy to it and requested leave to put 
it in the * Western Magazine, ' and so it is in print. It is 
ascribed to Catherine, or I don't know that I should have 
let it go, I have no notion of appearing in propria persona. 

"The next piece was a satire on certain members who 
were getting very much into the way of joking on the 
worn-out subjects of matrimony and old maid and old 
bachelorism. I therefore wrote a set of legislative enact- 
ments purporting to be from the ladies of the society, for- 
bidding all such allusions in future. It made some sport 
at the time. I try not to be personal, and to be courteous, 
even in satire. 

" But I have written a piece this week that is making 
me some disquiet. I did not like it that there was so 
little that was serious and rational about the reading. So 
I conceived the design of writing a set of letters, and 
throwing them in, as being the letters of a friend. I 
wrote a letter this week for the first of the set, — easy, 
not very sprightly, — describing an imaginary situation, a 
house in the country, a gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. 
Howard, as being pious, literary, and agreeable. I threw 
into the letter a number of little particulars and incidental 
allusions to give it the air of having been really a letter. 
I meant thus to give myself an opportunity for the intro- 
duction of difi'erent subjects and the discussion of dijfferent 
characters in future letters, 

"I meant to write on a great number of subjects in 
future. Cousin Elisabeth, only, was in the secret; Uncle 
Samuel and Sarah Elliot were not to know. 



84 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1834 

"Yesterday morning I finished my letter, smoked it to 
make it look yellow, tore it to make it look old, directed 
it and scratched out the direction, postmarked it with red 
ink, sealed it and broke the seal, all this to give credibility 
to the fact of its being a real letter. Then I inclosed it 
in an envelope, stating that it was a part of a set which 
had incidentally fallen into my hands. This envelope was 
written in a scrawn}^ scrawly gentleman's hand. 

"I put it into the office in the morning, directed to ' Mrs. 
Samuel E. Foote, ' and then sent word to Sis that it was 
coming, so that she might be ready to enact the part. 

" Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it 
and pronounced, ex cathedra, that it must have been a 
real letter. Mr. Greene (the gentleman who reads) de- 
clared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall, and eluci- 
dated the theory by spelling out the names and dates which 
I had erased, which, of course, he accommodated to his 
own tastes. But then, what makes me feel uneasy is that 
Elisabeth, after reading it, did not seem to be exactly 
satisfied. She thought it had too much sentiment, too 
much particularity of incident, — she did not exactly know 
what. She was afraid that it would be criticised unmerci- 
fully. Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of percep- 
tion that I trust to, and her remarks have made me uneasy 
enough. I am unused to being criticised, and don't know 
how I shall bear it." 

About a year after the arrival of Dr. Beecher's family 
in Cincinnati, the subject of slavery was first brought un- 
der Harriet's personal observation during a visit in Ken- 
tucky. Miss Dutton, one of the teachers in Miss Beecher's 
Institute, was her companion. Harriet found herself on 
the estate which was later known as Colonel Shelby's in 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin." Many years after. Miss Dutton 
said, in speaking of this visit: — 



1834] MODEL SCHOOLS 85 

"Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular 
that happened, but sat much of the time as though ab- 
stracted in thought. When the negroes did funny things 
and cut up capers, she did not seem to pay the slightest 
attention to them. Afterwards, however, in reading ' Un- 
cle Tom, ' I recognized scene after scene of that visit por- 
trayed with the most minute fidelity, and knew at once 
where the material for that portion of the story had been 
gathered." 

But the great subject of slavery was not yet the ruling 
thought of her existence. She continues to write to Miss 
May on the subject of education: — 

"We mean to turn over the West by means of inodel 
schools in this, its capital. We mean to have a young 
ladies' school of about fifty or sixty, a primary school of 
little girls to the same amount, and then a primary school 
for boys. We have come to the conclusion that the work 
of teaching will never be rightly done till it passes into 
female hands. This is especially true with regard to 
boys. To govern boys by moral influences requires tact 
and talent and versatility; it requires also the same divi- 
sion of labor that female education does. But men of 
tact, versatility, talent, and piety will not devote their 
lives to teaching. They must be ministers and mission- 
aries, and all that, and while there is such a thrilling call 
for action in this way, every man who is merely teaching 
feels as if he were a Hercules with a distafi", ready to 
spring to the first trumpet that calls him away. As for 
division of labor, men must have salaries that can support 
wife and family, and, of course, a revenue would be re- 
quired to support a requisite number of teachers if they 
could be found. 

"Then, if men have more knowledge they have less 
talent at communicating it, nor have they the patience, 
the long-suffering, and gentleness necessary to superintend 



86 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1834 

the formation of character. We intend to make these 
principles understood, and ourselves to set the example of 
what females can do in this way. You see that first-rate 
talent is necessary for all that we mean to do, especially 
for the last, because here we must face down the prejudices 
of society, and we must have exemplary success to be be- 
lieved. We want original, planning minds, and you do 
not know how few there are among females, and how few 
we can command of those that exist." 

In after years Mrs. Stowe wrote of their home in Cincin- 
nati : — 

"Dr. Beecher's residence on Walnut Hills was in many 
respects peculiarly pleasant. It was a two-story brick edi- 
fice of moderate dimensions, fronting the west, with a long 
L running back into the primeval forest, or grove, as it 
was familiarly called, which here came up to the very 
door. Immense trees — beech, black oak, and others — 
spread their broad arms over the back yard, affording in 
summer an almost impenetrable shade. 

"An airy veranda was built in the angle formed by the 
L along the entire inner surface of the house, from which, 
during the fierce gales of autumn and winter, we used to 
watch the tossing of the spectral branches, and listen to 
the roaring of the wind through the forest. Two or three 
large beeches and elms had been with difficulty saved from 
the inexorable woodman's axe, and though often menaced as 
endangering the safety of the house from their great height, 
they still flourish in beauty. Through that beautiful grove 
the doctor and two of his sons, during the three years 
1834-37, passed daily to and from the seminary buildings. 
A rustic gate was hung between the back yard and the 
grove, and the path crossed a run, or gully, where for 
a season an old carpenter's bench supplied the place of 
bridge. In that grove was a delightful resort of the 
young people from the city, of Dr. Beecher's flock, who 



1834] THE LAKGE HOUSEHOLD 87 

often came out to spend a social hour or enjoy a picnic iu 
the woods. 

" During the first year of Dr. Beecher's Walnut Hills 
life, the care of the family was shared between Mrs. 
Beecher and Aunt Esther, though, as the health of the 
former declined, the burden of responsibility fell more and 
more upon the latter. The family was large, comprising, in- 
cluding servants, thirteen in all, besides occasional visitors. 

"The house was full. There was a continual high tide 
of life and animation. The old carryall was constantly 
vibrating between home and the city, and the excitement 
of going and coming rendered anything like stagnation an 
impossibility. And if we take into account the constant 
occurrence of matters for consultation respecting the semi- 
nary and the students, or respecting the Church and con- 
gregation in the city, or respecting Presbytery, Synod, and 
General Assembly, as well as the numberless details of 
shopping, marketing, which must be done in the city, it 
will be seen that at no period of his life was Dr. Beecher's 
mind more constantly on the stretch, exerted to the utmost 
tension of every fibre, and never, to use an expressive fig- 
ure of Professor Stowe, did he wheel a greater number of 
heavily laden wheelbarrows all at one and the same time. 
Had he husbanded his energies and turned them in a 
single channel, the mental fire might have burned steadily 
on till long after threescore years and ten. But this was 
an impossibility. Circumstances and his own constitutional 
temperament united to spur him on, and for more than 
twenty of his best years he worked under a high pressure, 
to use his favorite expression, to the ne plus, — that is, 
to the utmost limit of physical and moral endurance. 

"It was an exuberant and glorious life while it lasted. 
The atmosphere of his household was replete with moral 
oxygen, — full charged with intellectual electricity. No- 
where else have we felt anything resembling or equaling 



88 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1834 

it. It was a kind of moral heaven, the purity, vivacity, 
inspiration, and enthusiasm of which only those can appre- 
ciate who have lost it, and feel that in this world there is, 
there can be, ' no place like home. ' " 

"During the summer of 1834," writes her son, "the 
young teacher and writer made her first visit East since 
leaving New England two years before. Its object was 
mainly to be present at the graduation of her favorite 
brother, Henry Ward, from Amherst College. The earlier 
part of this journey was performed by means of stage to 
Toledo, and thence by steamer to Buffalo. A pleasant bit 
of personal description, and also of impressions of Niagara, 
seen for the first time on this journey, are given in a letter 
sent back to Cincinnati during its progress. In it she says 
of her fellow- travelers : — 

" ' Then there was a portly, rosy, clever Mr. Smith, or 
Jones, or something the like; and a New Orleans girl 
looking like distraction, as far as dress is concerned, but 
with the prettiest language and softest intonations in the 
world, and one of those faces which, while you say it is n't 
handsome, keeps you looking all the time to see what it 
can be that is so pretty about it. Then there was Miss 
B., an independent, good-natured, do-as-I-please sort of a 
body, who seemed of perpetual motion from morning till 
night. Poor Miss D. said, when we stopped at night, 
"Oh, dear! I suppose Lydia will be fiddling about our 
room till morning, and we shall not one of us sleep." 
Then, by way of contrast, there was a Mr. Mitchell, the 
most gentlemanly, obliging man that ever changed his seat 
forty times a day to please a lady. Oh, yes, he could ride 
outside, — or, oh, certainly, he could ride inside, — he 
had no objection to this, or that, or the other. Indeed, 
it was difficult to say what could come amiss to him. He 
speaks in a soft, quiet manner, with something of a drawl, 
using very correct, well-chosen language, and pronouncing 



1834] NIAGARA 89 

all his words with carefulness; has everything in his dress 
and traveling appointments comme il faut ; and seems to 
think there is abundant time for everything that is to be 
done in this world, without, as he says, "any unnecessary 
excitement." Before the party had fully discovered his 
name he was usually designated as "the obliging gentle- 
man," or "that gentleman who is so accommodating. " Yet 
our friend, withal, is of Irish extraction, and I have seen 
him roused to talk with both hands and a dozen words in 
a breath. He fell into a little talk about abolition and 
slavery with our good Mr. Jones, a man whose mode of 
reasoning consists in repeating the same sentence at regular 
intervals as long as you choose to answer it. This man, 
who was finally convinced that negroes were black, used it 
as an irrefragable argument to all that could be said, and 
at last began to deduce from it that they might just as 
Avell be slaves as anything else, and so he proceeded till all 
the philanthropy of our friend was roused, and he sprung 
up all lively and oratorical and gesticulatory and indignant 
to my heart's content. I like to see a quiet man that can 
be roused. ' " 

In this same letter she describes Niagara. Her style 
is of the very fibre of her own being, and she lives again 
for us as we read : — 

"Let me tell, if I can, what is unutterable. I did not 
once think whether it was high or low ; whether it roared 
or didn't roar; whether it equaled my expectations or not. 
My mind whirled off, it seemed to me, in a new, strange 
world. It seemed unearthly, like the strange, dim images 
in the Revelation. I thought of the great white throne; 
the rainbow around it; the throne in sight like unto an 
emerald; and oh! that beautiful water rising like moon- 
light, falling as the soul sinks when it dies, to rise re- 
fined, spiritualized, and pure; that rainbow, breaking out, 
trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful spirit 



90 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1836 

walking the waters. Oh, it is lovelier than it is great ; it 
is like the Mind that made it: great, but so veiled in 
beauty that we gaze without terror. I felt as if I could 
have gone over with the waters; it would be so beautiful 
a death; there would be no fear in it. I felt the rock 
tremble under me with a sort of joy. T was so maddened 
that I could have gone too, if it had gone." 

It was during Harriet's absence in the East that the 
news reached her of the death of a dear friend, Eliza Tyler, 
the young wife of Professor Stowe. Calvin E. Stowe and 
his wife Eliza Tyler had been among the most valued mem- 
bers of the social club of which Harriet Beecher has already 
given us a picture. Eliza Tyler was about the same age as 
Harriet. They became very close friends, and the news of 
her death was a true sorrow. There were not many women 
of her character and tastes anywhere, but Cincinnati was 
robbed of its dearest joy to Harriet when Eliza Tyler died. 
Professor Stowe was born in Natick, Massachusetts, in 1802, 
early enough to be cognizant of all the theological warfare 
of the period. The battle was hotly fought out in Con- 
necticut between the factions of the Doctors Taylor and 
Tyler, the latter representing the radical branch of the 
argument. Professor Stowe was sensitive to impressions, 
eager for learning, with an extraordinary memory, reading 
German and Hebrew with absolute ease, with a keen sense 
of humor, and a still keener power of suffering from depres- 
sion of spirits. His quick insight and unusual, almost ex- 
ceptional, learning doubtless caused him early to espouse 
the Tyler views in theology, and ultimately led him to find 
his first wife. 

When Harriet Beecher retiirned from her visit to the 
East, she found Mr. Stowe plunged in the deepest woe. He 
was always very dependent upon cheerful surroundings, and 
now she saw him suffering from grief, utterly lonely and 
forlorn. When he could be aroused from his sorrow his 



1836] MARRIAGE 91 

mind reasserted itself and made him a very witty and de- 
lightful companion ; but left to himself he easily relapsed 
into the darkness of grief. For two years, while busily 
occupied as usual with matters of education, with ever 
closer observation of the South, and the condition of the 
slaves, with theological discussions and the social life 
around her, she spent herself in endeavoring to soothe 
this sad and solitary man. 

The distance was not great between the sympathy and 
loving care she gave to Professor Stowe during this period, 
and the love which by and by declared itself. At the end 
of the two years she became his wife. She writes to Miss 

May : — 

January 6, 1836. 

"Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your 
old friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease 
to be Hatty Beecher, and change to nobody knows who. 
My dear, you are engaged, and pledged in a year or two 
to encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know how 
you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading and 
dreading the time, and lying aAvake all last week wonder- 
ing how I should live through this overwhelming crisis, 
and lo! it has come, and I feel nothing at all." 

This letter was interrupted by the arrival of Professor 
Stowe upon the scene, and was left in her desk unfinished 
until three weeks after the wedding, when she added : — 

"My husband and self are now quietly seated by our 
own fireside, as domestic as any pair of tame fowl you 
ever saw; he writing to his mother, and I to you. Two 
days after our marriage we took a wedding excursion, so 
called, though we would most gladly have been excused this 
conformity to ordinary custom had not necessity required 
Mr. Stowe to visit Columbus, and I had too much adhesive- 
ness not to go too. Ohio roads at this season are no joke, 
I can tell you, though we were, on the whole, wonderfully 



92 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1836 

taken care of, and our expedition included as many plea- 
sures as an expedition at this time of the year ever could. 

"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as to 
me, is how this momentous crisis in the life of such a wisp 
of nerve as myself has been transacted so quietly. My 
dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am tranquil, quiet, and 
happy. I look only on the present, and leave the future 
with Him who has hitherto been so kind to me. ' Take 
no thought for the morrow ' is my motto, and my comfort 
is to rest on Him in whose house there are many mansions 
provided when these fleeting earthly ones pass away. 

"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month 
that I have let the above lie by, because I got into a strain 
of emotion in it that I dreaded to return to. Well, so it 
shall be no longer. In about five weeks Mr. Stowe and 
myself start for New England. He sails the first of May. 
I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other 
places, and shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon 
as he is gone, it is my intention to return westward." 

Thus, at the very threshold of their new life, Harriet and 
her husband discovered that, great as their love for each 
other might be, it was ever to be enlarged and made more 
beautiful by their devotion to the common welfare. The 
condition of the public schools of Cincinnati was then far 
behind the best intelligence of the age. Harriet had de- 
voted herself, up to the time of her marriage, to bringing 
about some reformation in education, private as well as 
public, and Professor Stowe had been one of the founders 
of " The College for Teachers," an institution which exer- 
cised much influence in elevating the standard of teaching. 
It was natural, under the circumstances, that Professor 
Stowe should have been selected by the state legislature as 
the right man to send abroad and report upon the common 
schools of Europe, especially those of Prussia. There was 
great need also of foreign books for Lane Seminary, and 



1836] PKOFESSOR STOWE'S DEPARTUKE FOR EUROPE 93 

who was so well fitted as Professor Stowe to select these ? 
It was decided, therefore, that he should leave home on 
this double mission. Mrs. Stowe could hardly have been 
a child of her father without a feeling of being born to 
serve the world as well as to live and love in her own little 
round. Professor Stowe was of the same mind, and lived 
in the same atmosphere as his wife in this respect. There 
seems to have been no question between them as to the 
acceptance of this call. The need was clear to them both ; 
also it must have been quite evident that he was the only 
man capable of fulfilling such errands, with intelligence, for 
Cincinnati. His knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, German 
and Italian, was remarkable for any period, but was excep- 
tional at a time when German dictionaries were so rare and 
inaccessible that Theodore Parker was obliged to walk from 
Watertown to Professor Ticknor's house in Boston to con- 
sult one. Professor Stowe's scholarship was not always, we 
have heard, of the most accurate kind, but he read with 
absolute ease the most recondite books in many languages. 
To the end of his life he carried a small Greek Testament 
and a copy of the Divina Commedia in his pocket, and died 
with them under his pillow ; when one copy of either of 
his favorites was worn out he would buy a new one ; they 
were his inseparable companions. 

This long parting of the newly married lovers was not 
easy. Evidently Mrs. Stowe found it dij0ficult to keep up 
her husband's spirits. She was already unable to go with 
him, but she went to watch his departure from New York, 
and to cheer him on his way by a letter, to be opened on 
the voyage, sparkling with her wit and wisdom. 

"Now, my dear, that you are gone where you are out 
of the reach of my care, advice, and good management, it 
is fitting that you should have something under my hand 
and seal for your comfort and furtherance in the new world 
you are going to. Firstly, I must caution you to set your 



94 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 

face as a flint against the ' cultivation of indigo, ' as Elisa- 
beth calls it, in any way or shape. . , . But seriously, 
dear one, you must give more way to hope than to memory. 
You are going to a new scene now, and one that I hope 
will be full of enjoyment to you. I want you to take the 
good of it. 

" Only think of all you expect to see : the great libraries 
and beautifvil paintings, fine churches, and, above all, think 
of seeing Tholuck, your great Apollo. My dear, I wish 
I were a man in your place; if I wouldn't have a grand 
time ! " 

During the long summer and autumn of her husband's 
absence Mrs. Stowe lived at her father's home in Cincinnati, 
writing busily for a local paper, of which Henry Ward had 
accepted the temporary editorship, as well as for other 
journals in New York and at the West; beside these en- 
gagements, she wrote a daily journal to her husband, 
wherein we see, as in a glass, the crumbling and upheav- 
ing here and there of the great earthquake of war for slav- 
ery which was still to wait a quarter of a century for its 
awful development. 

Mrs. Stowe was not yet altogether an abolitionist. 
Theodore D. Weld was a young student in the Seminary, 
who by lecturing in the South had earned the money for 
his education. He also earned what he had not foreseen, 
a knowledge of slavery, which made him a strong advocate 
for its abolition. He had won several slaveholders over 
to his faith, some of whom had freed their slaves. One 
of these gentlemen, Mr. Birney, came to Cincinnati and 
joined with Dr. Bailey in editing an anti-slavery news- 
paper there. Kentucky slave owners, getting wind of 
this, came to Cincinnati, and destroyed the Press. Mobo- 
cracy reigned ; the people took sides hotly. Mrs. Stowe 
wrote to her husband : — 

"For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings 



1838] MOB VIOLENCE 95 

may make converts to abolitionism, for already my sympa- 
thies are strongly enlisted for Mr. Birney, and I hope that 
he will stand his ground and assert his rights. The office 
is fire-proof, and inclosed by high walls. I wish he would 
man it with armed men, and see what can be done. If I 
were a man I would go, for one, and take good care of at 
least one window. Henry sits opposite me writing a most 
valiant editorial, and tells me to tell you he is waxing 
mighty in battle. 

"I told you in my last that the mob broke into Birney 's 
Press, where, however, the mischief done was but slight. 
The object appeared to be principally to terrify. Imme- 
diately there followed a general excitement in which even 
good men in their panic and prejudice about abolition- 
ism forgot that mobs were worse evils than these, talked 
against Birney, and winked at the outrage; N. Wright 
and Judge Burnet, for example. Meanwhile the turbulent 
spirits went beyond this and talked of revolution and of 
righting things without law that could not be righted by 
it. At the head of these were Morgan, Neville, Long- 
worth, Joseph Graham, and Judge Burke. A meeting 
"was convoked at Lower Market Street to decide whether 
they would permit the publishing of an abolition paper, 
and to this meeting all the most respectable citizens were 
by name summoned, 

"For a day or two we did not know but there would 
actually be war to the knife, as was threatened by the 
mob, and we really saw Henry depart with his pistols with 
daily alarm, only we were all too full of patriotism not to 
have sent every brother we had rather than not have had 
the principles of freedom and order defended. 

" But here the tide turned. The mob, unsupported by 
a now frightened community, slunk into their dens and 
were still." 



96 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 

The sense of obedience to law still holds her : " Pray 
what is there in Cincinnati to satisfy one whose mind is 
awakened on this subject ? " she continues. " No one can 
have the system of slavery brought before him without an 
irrepressible desire to do something ; and what is there to 
be done ? " 

In the early autumn, before Professor Stowe could return 
to his wife, she gave birth to twin daughters, who were 
named by her Eliza and Isabella; but the moment he 
reached New York, in mid-winter, after a two months' voy- 
age home from London, and heard the news, he insisted 
they should be called Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher. 

During the following summer, Mrs. Stowe's health be- 
came very delicate, and she went to make a long visit at 
the house of the Rev. William Beecher in Putnam, Ohio. 
Professor Stowe wrote to her : — 

"This alliance between the old school (Presbyterians) 
and slaveholders will make more abolitionists than any- 
thing that has been done yet." 

In January, Mrs. Stowe's third child, Henry, was born. 
She wrote in June to Georgiana May : — 

"Mt dear, dear Georgiana, — Only think how 
long it is since I have written to you, and how changed I 
am since then, — the mother of three children ! Well, if 
I have not kept the reckoning of old times, let this last 
circumstance prove my apology, for I have been hand, 
heart, and head full since I saw you. 

"Now, to-day, for example, I '11 tell you what I had on 
my mind from dawn to dewy eve. In the first place I 
waked about half after four and thought, ' Bless me, how 
light it is ! I must get out of bed and rap to wake up Mina, 
for breakfast must be had at six o'clock this morning.' 
So out of bed I jump and .seize the tongs and pound, 
pound, pound over poor Mina's sleepy head, charitably 



1838] HOUSEKEEPING 97 

allowing her about half an hour to get waked up in, — that 
being the quantum of time that it takes me, — or used to. 
Well, then baby wakes — qua, qua, qua, so I give him his 
breakfast, dozing meanwhile and soliloquizing as follows: 
' Now I must not forget to tell Mr. Stowe about the starch 
and dried apples ' — doze — * ah, um, dear me ! why does n't 
Mina get up ? I don't hear her, ' — doze — ' a, um, — 
I wonder if Mina has soap enough ! I think there were 
two bars left on Saturday ' — doze again — I wake again. 
' Dear me, broad daylight ! I must get up and go down 
and see if Mina is getting breakfast.' Up I jump and up 
wakes baby. ' Now, little boy, be good and let mother 
dress, because she is in a hurry.' I get my frock half on, 
and baby by that time has kicked himself down off his 
pillow, and is crying and fisting the bedclothes in great 
order. I stop with one sleeve off and one on to settle 
matters with him. Having planted him bolt upright and 
gone all up and down the chamber barefoot to get pillows 
and blankets to prop him up, I finish putting my frock 
on and hurry down to satisfy myself by actual observation 
that the breakfast is in progress. Then back I come into 
the nursery, where, remembering that it is washing day, 
and that there is a great deal of work to be done, I apply 
myself vigorously to sweeping, dusting, and the setting to 
rights so necessary where there are three little mischiefs 
always pulling down as fast as one can put up. 

"Well, Georgy, this marriage is — yes, I will speak 
well of it, after all; for when I can stop and think long 
enough to discriminate my head from my heels, I must 
say that I think myself a fortunate woman both in hus- 
band and children. My children I would not change for 
all the ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could have with- 
out them. They are money on interest whose value will 
be constantly increasing." 



98 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 

One of her friends at this time was anxious to get her to 
finish a story she had partly written, and for the conclusion 
of which the editor was waiting. This friend's account 
of difficulties is- amusing, because both the ladies chose 
to be amused, and carried the matter oflf in such a humor- 
ous vein; but it easily has another side, when we consider 
Mrs. Stowe's health, and the work which lay before her. 

" ' Come, Harriet,' said I," wrote her friend, "as I found 
her tending one baby and watching two others just able to 
walk, 'where is that piece for the "Souvenir" which I 
promised the editor I would get from you and send on next 
week? You have only this one day left to finish it, and 
have it I must.' 

" ' And how will you get it, friend of mine ? ' said Har- 
riet. ' You will at least have to wait till I get house- 
cleaning over and baby's teeth through.' 

" ' As to house-cleaning, you can defer it one day longer; 
and as to baby's teeth, there is to be no end to them, as 
I can see. No, no; to-day that story must be ended. 
There Frederick has been sitting by Ellen and saying all 
those pretty things for more than a month now, and she 
has been turning and blushing till I am sure it is time to 
go to her relief. Come, it would not take you three hours 
at the rate you can write to finish the courtship, marriage, 
catastrophe, eclaircissement, and all; and this three hours' 
labor of your brains will earn enough to pay for all the 
sewing your fingers could do for a year to come. Two 
dollars a page, my dear, and you can write a page in fifteen 
minutes! Come, then, my lady housekeeper, economy is 
a cardinal virtue ; consider the economy of the thing. ' 

" ' But, my dear, here is a baby in my arms and two 
little pussies by my side, and there is a great baking down 
in the kitchen, and there is a "new girl " for "help," be- 
sides preparations to be made for housecleaning next week. 
It is really out of the question, you see. ' 



1838] PURSUIT OF LETTERS UNDER DIFFICULTIES 99 

" ' I see no such thing. I do not know what genius is 
given for, if it is not to help a woman out of a scrape. 
Come, set your wits to work, let me have my way, and 
you shall have all the work done and finish the story, too.' 

" ' Well, but kitchen alfairs?' 

" ' We can manage them, too. You know you can write 
anywhere and anyhow. Just take your seat at the kitchen 
table with your writing weapons, and while you superin- 
tend Mina, fill up the odd snatches of time with the labors 
of your pen. ' 

"I carried my point. In ten minutes she was seated; a 
table with flour, rolling-pin, ginger, and lard on one side, 
a dresser with eggs, pork, and beans, and various cooking 
utensils on the other, near her an oven heating, and beside 
her a dark-skinned nymph, waiting orders. 

" ' Here, Harriet, ' said I, ' you can write on this atlas 
in your lap; no matter how the writing looks, I will copy 
it.' 

" ' Well, well, ' said she, with a resigned sort of amused 
look. ' Mina, you may do what I told you, while I write 
a few minutes, till it is time to mould up the bread. 
Where is the inkstand ? ' 

'"Here it is, close by, on the top of the tea-kettle,' 
said I. 

" At this Mina giggled, and we both laughed to see her 
merriment at our literary proceedings. 

"I began to overhaul the portfolio to find the right 
sheet. 

" ' Here it is, ' said I. ' Here is Frederick sitting by 
Ellen, glancing at her brilliant face, and saying something 
about "guardian angel," and all that — you remember? ' 

" ' Yes, yes, ' said she, falling into a muse, as she at- 
tempted to recover the thread of her story. 

"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the 
beans ? ' asked Mina. 



100 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 

" * Come, come, ' said Harriet, laughing. ' You see how 
it is. Mina is a new hand and cannot do anything with- 
out me to direct her. We must give up the writing for 
to-day. ' 

'"No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate 
as easily as you can write. Come, I can set the baby in 
this clothes-basket and give him some mischief or other to 
keep him quiet ; you shall dictate and I will write. Now, 
this is the place where you left off: you were describing 
the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence 
was, "Borne down by the tide of agony, she leaned her 
head on her hands, the tears streamed through her fingers, 
and her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs." "What 
shall I write next ? ' 

" ' Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash, ' said 
Harriet. 

" ' Here, ' said I, ' let me direct Mina about these mat- 
ters, and write a while yourself. ' 

"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to the 
work. For a while my culinary knowledge and skill were 
proof to all Mina's investigating inquiries, and they did 
not fail till I saw two pages completed. 

" * You have done bravely, ' said I, as I read over the 
manuscript ; ' now you must direct Mina a while. Mean- 
while dictate and I will write. ' 

"Never was there a more docile literary lady than my 
friend. Without a word of objection she followed my 
request. 

" ' I am ready to write, ' said I. ' The last sentence 
was: " What is this life to one who has suffered as I 
have 1 " What next 1 ' 

" ' Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first 1 ' 
said Mina. 

" ' The brown first, ' said Harriet. 



1840] PURSUIT OF LETTERS UNDER DIFFICULTIES 101 

" * What is this life to one who has suffered as I 
have ? " ' said I. 

"Harriet brushed the flour oS her apron and sat down 

for a moment in a muse. Then she dictated as follows : — 

" ' " Under the breaking of my heart I have borne up. 

I have borne up under all that tries a woman, — but this 

thought, — oh, Henry ! " ' 

" ' Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin? ' que- 
ried Mina. 

" ' No, you may let that alone just now, ' replied Har- 
riet. She then proceeded : — 

"' "I know my duty to my children. I see the hour 
must come. You must take them, Henry; they are my 
last earthly comfort." ' 

" ' Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-shells and all 
this truck here ? ' interrupted Mina. 

" ' Put them in the pail by you, ' answered Harriet. 

« I "ihey are my last earthly comfort," ' said I. ' What 
next?' 

" She continued to dictate : — 

"'"You must take them away. It may be — perhaps 
it must be — that I shall soon follow, but the breaking 
heart of a wife still pleads, ' a little longer, a little 
longer. ' " ' 

" ' How much longer must the gingerbread stay in ? ' 
inquired Mina. 

" ' Five minutes, ' said Harriet. 

"*"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in a 
dolorous tone, and we burst into a laugh. 

"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and 
laughing, till I finally accomplished my object. The piece 
was finished, copied, and the next day sent to the editor." 

It is not wonderful, certainly, to find the following 
letter written to Georgiana May in December, 1840. In 
the previous month of May, another boy, Frederick Wil- 



102 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1840 

Ham, had been brought into the world. Mrs. Stowe 



"For a year I have held the pen only to write an occa- 
sional business letter such as could not be neglected. This 
was primarily owing to a severe neuralgic complaint that 
settled in my eyes, and for two months not only made it 
impossible for me to use them in writing, but to fix them 
Avith attention on anything. I could not even bear the 
least light of day in my room. Then my dear little Fred- 
erick was born, and for two months more I was confined 
to my bed. Besides all this, we have had an unusual 
amount of sickness in our family. . . . 

"For all that my history of the past year records so 
many troubles, I cannot, on the whole, regard it as a very 
troublous one. I have had so many counterbalancing 
mercies that I must regard myself as a person greatly 
blessed. It is true that about six months out of the 
twelve I have been laid up with sickness, but then I have 
had every comfort and the kindest of nurses in my faithful 
Anna. My children have thriven, and on the whole 
' come to more, ' as the Yankees say, than the care of 
them. Thus you see my troubles have been but enough 
to keep me from loving earth too well." 

During this hard time the navigation of the Ohio had 
been impeded for several months. Cincinnati was like a 
besieged city; no supplies could reach the people. Flour 
and pork, which happily could be had at reasonable prices, 
kept them from starving, but in Mrs. Stowe's delicate 
condition it was especially difficult to bear. She was sin- 
gularly uncomplaining, and the only mention we find of 
this state of public affairs is in a letter from Professor 
Stowe to his mother. A few months earlier there had 
been a meeting of all the Beecher family in Cincinnati, a 
very exciting affair to old Dr. Beecher as well as to the 
eleven children. Two of them had never met before! 



1840] PROFESSOR STOWE'S APPRECIATION 103 

The Doctor's pulpit was filled that Sunday, iu the morning 
by his son Edward, by William in the afternoon, and by 
George in the evening. All these things drew upon Mrs. 
Stowe's nervous energy, already at a low ebb. She was 
obliged to leave home. Taking her six-year-old daughter 
Hattie with her she went first to Hartford, where the 
following letter reached her from her husband. She had 
confided to him in a previous letter some of her literary 
plans and aspirations; Professor Stowe replies: — 

"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so 
written in the book of fate. Make all your calculations 
accordingly. Get a good stock of health and brush up 
your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only in- 
cumbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony. 
Write yourself fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
which is a name euphonious, flowing, and full of meaning. 
Then my word for it, your husband will lift up his head 
in the gate, and your children will rise up and call you 
blessed. 

"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distin- 
guished honor of which I must give you an account. It 
was a visit from his excellency the Baron de Roenne, am- 
bassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the United 
States. He was pleased to assure me of the great satisfac- 
tion my report on Prussian schools had aff'orded the king 
and members of his court, with much more to the same 
efi'ect. Of course, having a real live lord to exhibit, I 
was anxious for some one to exhibit him to; but neither 
Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture near the study, 
though they both contrived to get a peep at his lordship 
from the little chamber window as he was leaving. 

"And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as 
quick as you can. The fact is I cannot live without you, 
and if we were not so prodigious poor I would come for 
you at once. There is no woman like you in this wide 



104 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1840 

world. Who else has so much talent with so little self- 
conceit; so much reputation with so little affectation; so 
much literature with so little nonsense; so much enterprise 
with so little extravagance; so much tongue with so little 
scold; so much sweetness with so little softness; so much 
of so many things and so little of so many other things 1 " 

In answer to this letter, Mrs. Stowe writes from Hart- 
ford : — 

"I have seen Johnson of the ' Evangelist,' He is very 
liberally disposed, and I may safely reckon on being paid 
for all I do there. Who is that Hale, Jr., that sent me 
the ' Boston Miscellany, ' and will he keep his word with 
me ? His offers are very liberal, — twenty dollars for 
three pages, not very close print. Is he to be depended 
on? If so, it is the best offer I have received yet. I 
shall get something from the Harpers some time this win- 
ter or spring. Kobertson, the publisher here, says the 
book (' The Mayflower ') will sell, and though the terms 
they offer me are very low, that I shall make something 
on it. For a second volume I shall be able to make better 
terms. On the whole, my dear, if I choose to be a literary 
lady, I have, I think, as good a chance of making profit 
by it as any one I know of. But with all this, I have 
my doubts whether I shall be able to do so. 

"Our children are just coming to the age when every- 
thing depends on my efforts. They are delicate in health, 
and nervous and excitable, and need a mother's whole 
attention. Can I lawfully divide my attention by literary 
efforts ? 

"There is one thing I must suggest. If I am to write, 
I must have a room to myself, which shall be mij room. 
I have in my own mind pitched on Mrs. Whipple's room. 
I can put the stove in it. I have bought a cheap carpet 
for it, and I have furniture enough at home to furnish it 
comfortably, and I only beg in addition that you will let 



1841] LITEKATURE HER VOCATION 105 

me change the glass door from the nursery into that room 
and keep my plants there, and then I shall be quite 
happy. 

"All last winter I felt the need of some place where I 
could go and be quiet and satisfied. I could not there, 
for there was all the setting of tables, and clearing up of 
tables, and dressing and washing of children, and every- 
thing else going on, and the continual falling of soot and 
coal dust on everything in the room was a constant annoy- 
ance to me, and I never felt comfortable there, though I 
tried hard. Then if I came into the parlor where you 
were, I felt as if I were interrupting you, and you know 
you sometimes thought so, too. 

"Now this winter let the cooking-stove be put into that 
room, and let the pipe run up through the floor into the 
room above. The children can be washed and dressed and 
keep their playthings in the upper room and play there 
when we don't want them below. You can study by the 
parlor fire, and I and my plants, etc., will take the other 
room. I shall keep my work and all my things there, and 
feel settled and quiet. I intend to have a regular part of 
each day devoted to the children, and then I shall take them 
in there." 

In his reply to this letter Professor Stowe says : — 

"The little magazine (' The Souvenir ') goes ahead 
finely. Fisher sent down to Fulton the other day and got 
sixty subscribers. He will make the June number as 
handsome as possible, as a specimen number for the stu- 
dents, several of whom will take agencies for it during 
the coming vacation. You have it in your power by 
means of this little magazine to form the mind of the 
West for the coming generation. It is just as I told you 
in my last letter. God has written it in his book that 
you must be a literary woman, and who are we that we 
should contend against God 1 You must therefore make all 



106 HAREIET BEECHEE STOWE [1841 

your calculations to spend the rest of your life with your 
pen. 

"If you only could come home to-day how happy 
should I be. I am daily finding out more and more (what 
I knew very well before) that you are the most intelligent 
and agreeable woman in the whole circle of my acquain- 
tance. " 

" That Prof essor Stowe's devoted admiration for his wife 
was reciprocated," writes their son Charles, "and that a 
most perfect sympathy of feeling existed between the hus- 
band and wife, is shown by a line in one of Mrs. Stowe's 
letters from Hartford in which she says : ' I was telling 
Belle yesterday that I did not know till I came away how 
much I was dependent upon you for information. There 
are a thousand favorite subjects on which I could talk 
with you better than with any one else. If you were not 
already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall in 
love with you. ' " 

In this same letter she writes of herself : — 

"One thing more in regard to myself. The absence 
and wandering of mind and forgetfulness that so often 
vexes you is a physical infirmity with me. It is the fail- 
ing of a mind not calculated to endure a great pressure of 
care, and so much do I feel the pressure I am under, so 
much is my mind often darkened and troubled by care, 
that life seriously considered holds out few allurements, 
— only my children. 

"In returning to my family, from whom I have been so 
long separated, I am impressed with a new and solemn 
feeling of responsibility. It appears to me that I am not 
probably destined for long life; at all events, the feeling 
is strongly impressed txpon my mind that a work is put 
into my hands which I must be earnest to finish shortly. 
It is nothing great or brilliant in the world's eye; it lies 



1842] EDUCATION OF CHILDKEN 107 

in one small family circle, of which I am called to be the 
central point." 

We find in a journal of this period: "For many weeks 
past my mind has been oppressed with a strong sense of 
the importance of the early education of my children, and 
with an ever agonizing sense of incompetence to undertake 
it. Where so many of the wisest and hest fail, how can 
/ hope to succeed. My only hope is in prayer. God is 
all powerful. . . . 

"The most fearful thing about this education matter is, 
that it is example more than word. Talk as you will, the 
child follows what he sees, not what he hears. The pre- 
vailing tone of the parent's character will make the temper 
of the household; the spirit of the parent will form the 
spirit of the child," 

On the way home from her visit to the East, Mrs. 
Stowe traveled for the first time by rail, and of this novel 
experience she writes to Miss Georgiana May : — 

Batavia, August 29. 
"Here I am at Brother William's, and our passage along 
this railroad reminds me of the verse of the psalm : — 

'Tho' lions roar and tempests blow, 
And rocks and dangers till the way.' 

"Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swear- 
ing, such want of all sort of system and decency in arrange- 
ments, I never desire to see again. I was literally almost 
trodden down and torn to pieces in the Rochester depot 
when I went to help my poor, near-sighted spouse in sort- 
ing out the baggage. You see there was an accident which 
happened to the cars leaving Rochester that morning, which 
kept us two hours and a half at the passing place this side 
of Auburn, waiting for them to come up and go by us. 
The consequence was that we got into this Rochester depot 
aforesaid after dark, and the steamboat, the canal boat, 



108 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1843 

and the Western train of cars had all been kept waiting 
three hours beyond their usual time, and they all broke 
loose upon us the moment we put our heads out of the 
cars, and such a jerking, and elbowing, and scuffling, and 
swearing, and protesting, and scolding you never heard, 
while the great locomotive sailed up and down in the midst 
thereof, spitting fire and smoke like some great fiend mon- 
ster diverting himself with our commotions. I do think 
these steam concerns border a little too much on the super- 
natural to be agreeable, especially when you are shut up in 
a great dark depot after sundown. 

"Well, after all, we had to ride till twelve o'clock at 
night to get to Batavia, and I 've been sick abed, so to 
speak, ever since." 

The winter was one of peculiar trial to the family at 
Walnut Hills; as Mrs. Stowe writes, "It was a season of 
sickness and gloom." Typhoid fever raged among the stu- 
dents of the seminary, and the house of the president was 
converted into a hospital, while the members of his family 
were obliged to devote themselves to nursing the sick and 
dying. 

In July, a few weeks before the birth of her third 
daughter, Georgiana May, a most terrible and overwhelm- 
ing sorrow came on Mrs. Stowe, in common with all the 
family, in the sudden death of her brother, the Rev. 
George Beecher. 

In October she writes to one of her brothers : — 

"Our straits for money this year are unparalleled even 
in our annals. Even our bright and cheery neighbor Allen 
begins to look blue, and says six hundred dollars is the 
very most we can hope to collect of our salary, once twelve 
hundred dollars. We have a flock of entirely destitute 
young men in the seminary, as poor in money as they are 
rich in mental and spiritual resources. They promise to 



1844] SEMINARY FAILS TO PAY 109 

be as fine a band as those we have just sent off. We have 
two from Iowa and Wisconsin who were actually crowded 
from secular pursuits into the ministry by the wants of 
the people about them. Eevivals began, and the people 
came to them saying, ' We have no minister, and you must 
preach to us, for you know more than we do. ' " 

Professor Stowe was obliged to go to the East in order 
to raise money for the struggling seminary. His wife 
wrote to him : — 

"I am already half sick with confinement to the house 
and overwork. If I should sew every day for a month to 
come I should not be able to accomplish a half of what is 
to be done, and should be only more unfit for my other 
duties." 

Exception has been taken to the idea that Mrs. Stowe 
suffered from poverty. Her children were always made 
comfortable. She had a devoted young woman, Anna, who 
was her friend, companion, nurse for her children, and a 
second self in household labors, such as only a loving, sym- 
pathetic heart like Mrs. Stowe' s could draw to her side and 
hold by her afi'ection through a long series of years; also 
there was a colored woman in the kitchen for the simple 
cooking and the rougher work of the household. Never- 
theless, for Mrs. Stowe it was indeed "sufi'ering from pov- 
erty." Professor Stowe 's salary was very uncertain, as we 
have seen. They were both pledged to Christ's work in 
the world, and did not count the dollars and cents before 
undertaking any labor which was required of them. Even 
if a salary generous for a professor in those days had been 
regularly paid, it would not have been more than sufficient 
for seven children and an invalid wife ! Her husband was 
not lacking in afi'ection nor in constant endeavor, but they 
were neither of them far-sighted from a worldly point of 
view. For nearly two years at this period the trouble 
continued which bore so hardly upon the wife and mother. 



110 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1845 

Professor Stowe having been called away to a ministerial 
convention at Detroit, his wife wrote to him : — 



June 16. 

"My deak Husband, — It is a dark, sloppy, rainy, 
muddy, disagreeable day, and I have been working hard 
(for me) all day in the kitchen, washing dishes, looking 
into closets, and seeing a great deal of that dark side of 
domestic life which a housekeeper may who will investi- 
gate too curiously into minutiae in warm, damp weather, 
especially after a girl who keeps all clean on the outside 
of cup and platter, and is very apt to make good the rest 
of the text in the inside of things. 

"I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meat, 
and sour everything, and then the clothes will not dry, 
and no wet thing does, and everything smells mouldy; 
and altogether I feel as if I never wanted to eat again. 

"Your letter, which was neither sour nor mouldy, 
formed a very agreeable contrast to all these things; the 
more so for being unexpected. I am much obliged to 
you for it. As to my health, it gives me very little solici- 
tude, although it is bad enough and daily growing worse. 
I feel no life, no energy, no appetite, or rather a growing 
distaste for food ; in fact, I am becoming quite ethereal. 
Upon reflection I perceive that it pleases my Father to 
keep me in the fire, for my whole situation is excessively 
harassing and painful. I suffer with sensible distress in the 
brain, as I have done more or less since my sickness last 
winter, a distress which some days takes from me all power 
of planning or executing anything ; and you know that, ex- 
cept this poor head, my unfortunate household has no main- 
spring, for nobody feels any kind of responsibility to do a 
thing in time, place, or manner, except as I oversee it. 

" Georgiana is so excessively weak, nervous, cross, and 
fretful, night and day, that she takes all Anna's strength 



1846] OVEEWKOUGHT 111 

and time with her; and then the children are, like other 
little sons and daughters of Adam, full of all kinds of 
ahsurdity and folly. 

"When the brain gives out, as mine often does, and one 
cannot think or remember anything, then what is to be 
done ? All common fatigue, sickness, and exhaustion is 
nothing to this distress. Yet do I rejoice in my God, 
and know in whom I believe, and only pray that the fire 
may consume the dross; as to the gold, that is imperish- 
able. No real evil can happen to me, so I fear nothing 
for the future, and only suffer in the present tense. 

" God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and 
I know He knows that though flesh and heart fail, I am 
all the while desiring and trying for his will alone. As 
to a journey, I need not ask a physician to see that it is 
needful to me as far as health is concerned, that is to say, 
all human appearances are that way, but I feel no particu- 
lar choice about it. If God wills I go. He can easily 
find means. Money, I suppose, is as plenty with Him 
now as it always has been, and if He sees it is really best 
He will doubtless help me." 

Professor Stowe was doubtless much moved by this 
letter. We find he was able to get the means for sending 
his wife eastward to her friends in Hartford and Boston dur- 
ing the summer, but her condition was such that he was 
not greatly relieved. In March she writes : — 

"For all I have had trouble I can think of nothing but 
the greatness and richness of God's mercy to me in giving 
me such friends, and in always caring for us in every strait. 
There has been no day this winter when I have not had 
abundant reason to see this. Some friend has always 
stepped in to cheer and help, so that I have wanted for 
nothing. My husband has developed wonderfully as house- 
father and nurse. You would laugh to see him in his 



112 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1846 

spectacles gravely marching the little troop in their night- 
gowns up to bed, tagging after them, as he says, like an 
old hen after a flock of ducks. The money for my jour- 
ney has been sent in from an unknown hand in a wonder- 
ful manner. All this shows the care of our Father, and 
encourages me to rejoice and to hope in Him." 

It was decided that she must try Dr. Wesselhoeft's 
water-cure at Brattleboro', Vermont, her increasing debility 
giving cause for anxiety. On her journey she sends a 
line back from Pittsburgh to her husband, to which he 
replies, giving her the names of two ladies, strangers, who 
have sent him money, hearing of illness in the family. He 
continues : — 

"Henry and I have been living in a Robinson Crusoe 
and man Friday sort of style, greatly to our satisfaction, 
ever since you went away." 

Happily, two of Mrs. Stowe's sisters, Catherine and 
Mary, Avere able to be with her during a part of her ab- 
sence, but she was obliged to be away from her husband 
and children eleven months! It was a weary interval. 

Brattleboro', September. 

" My DEAU Husband, — I have been thinking of all 
your trials, and I really pity you in having such a wife. 
I feel as if I had been only a hindrance to you instead of 
a help, and most earnestly and daily do I pray to God to 
restore my health that I may do something for you and 
my family. I think if I were only at home I could at 
least sweep and dust, and wash potatoes, and cook a little, 
and talk to my children, and should be doing something 
for my family. But the hope of getting better buoys me 
up. I go through these tedious and wearisome baths and 
bear that terrible douche thinking of my children. They 
never will know how I love them. . . . 

'' There is great truth and good sense in your analysis 



1846] CAEE OF HEALTH 113 

of the cause of our past failures. We have now come to 
a sort of crisis. If you and I do as we should iov five 
years to come the character of our three oldest children 
will be established. This is why I am willing to spend so 
much time and make such efforts to have health. Oh, 
that God would give me these five years in full possession 
of mind and body, that I may train my children as they 
should be trained. I am fully aware of the importance of 
system and order in a family. I know that nothing can 
be done without it; it is the keystone, the sine qua non, 
and in regard to my children I place it next to piety. At 
the same time it is true that both Anna and I labor under 
serious natural disadvantages on this subject. It is not 
all that is necessary to feel the importance of order and 
system, but it requires a particular kind of talent to carry 
it through a family. Very much the same kind of talent, 
as Uncle Samuel said, which is necessary to make a good 
prime minister. . . . 

"I think you might make an excellent sermon to Chris- 
tians on the care of health, in consideration of the various 
infirmities and impediments to the developing the results 
of religion, that result from bodily ill health, and I wish 
you would make one, that your own mind may be more 
vividly impressed with it. The world is too much in a 
hurry. Ministers think there is no way to serve Christ 
but to overdraw on their physical capital for four or five 
years for Christ, and then have nothing to give, but be- 
come a mere burden on his hands for the next five. . . . 

November 18. "The daily course I go through presup- 
poses a degree of vigor beyond anything I ever had before. 
For this week, I have gone before breakfast to the wave- 
bath and let all the waves and billows roll over me till 
every limb ached with cold, and my hands would scarcely 
have feeling enough to dress me. After that I have walked 
till I was warm, and come home to breakfast with such an 



114 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1847 

appetite ! Brown bread and milk are luxuries indeed, and 
the only fear is that I may eat too much. At eleven 
comes my douche, to which I have walked in a driving 
rain for the last two days, and after it walked in the rain 
again till I was warm. (The umbrella you gave me at 
Natick answers finely, as well as if it were a silk one.) 
After dinner I roll ninepins or walk till four, then sitz- 
bath, and another walk till six. 

"I am anxious for your health; do be persuaded to try 
a long walk before breakfast. You don't know how much 
good it will do you. Don't sit in your hot study without 
any ventilation, a stove burning up all the vitality of the 
air and weakening your nerves, and above all, do amuse 
yourself. Go to Dr. Mussey's and spend an evening, and 
to father's and Professor Allen's. When you feel worried 
go off somewhere and forget and throw it off. I should 
really rejoice to hear that you and father and mother, with 
Professor and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of 
the same calibre would agree to meet together for dancing 
cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took Mr. 
K. 's wife and poor Miss Much- Afraid, her daughter, into 
the alliance, it would do them good. Bless me ! what a 
profane set everybody would think you were, and yet you 
are the people of all the world most solemnly in need of 
it. I wish you could be with me in Brattleboro' and coast 
down hill on a sled, go sliding and snowballing by moon- 
light! I would snowball every bit of the hypo out of 
you! Now, my dear, if you are going to get sick, I am 
going to come home. There is no use in my trying to get 
well if you, in the meantime, are going to run yourself 
down." 

January, 1847. 

"My dear Soul, — I received your most melancholy 
effusion, and I am sorry to find it 's just so. I entirely 



1849] MENTAL DEPRESSION 115 

agree and sympathize. Why didn't you engage the two 
tombstones — one for you and one for me 1 

"But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and 
be patient, for this cannot last forever. Be patient and 
bear it like the toothache, or a driving rain, or anything 
else that you cannot escape. To see things as through a 
glass darkly is your infirmity, you know; but the Lord 
will yet deliver you from this trial. I know how to pity 
you, for the last three weeks I have suifered from an over- 
whelming mental depression, a perfect heartsickness. All 
I wanted was to get home and die. Die I was very sure 
I should, at any rate, but I suppose I was never less pre- 
pared to do so." 

Happily the long exile was ended at last, and Mrs. 
Stowe returned to her rejoicing family. In the following 
January her son, Samuel Charles, was born. Shortly after, 
Professor Stowe became ill and was sent in turn to Brattle- 
boro', where he remained alone for fifteen months. Mrs. 
Stowe writes to Miss May : — 

"My beloved Georgt, — For six months after my 
return from Brattleboro' my eyes were so affected that I 
wrote scarce any, and my health was in so strange a state 
that I felt no disposition to write. After the birth of 
little Charley my health improved, but my husband was 
sick, and I have been so loaded and burdened with cares 
as to drain me dry of all capacity of thought, feeling, 
memory, or emotion. 

"Well, Georgy, I am thirty-seven years old! lam 
glad of it. I like to grow old and have six children and 
cares endless. I wish you could see me with my flock all 
around me. They sum up my cares, and were they gone 



116 - HAEEIET BEECHEE STOWE [1849 

I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? 
They are my work, over which I fear and tremble," 

Cholera was rife this year in Cincinnati. Professor 
Stowe was anxious to return, and be with his family, but 
his wife would not hear of it. 

Her journal letter says, June 29th : — 

" My dear Husband, — This week has been unusually 
fatal. The disease in the city has been malignant and 
virulent. Hearse drivers have scarce been allowed to 
unharness their horses, while furniture carts and common 
vehicles are often employed for the removal of the dead. 
The sable trains which pass our windows, the frequent 
indications of crowding haste, and the absence of reverent 
decency have, in many cases, been most painful. Of 
course all these things, whether we will or no, bring very 
doleful images to the mind, 

"On Tuesday one hundred and sixteen deaths from 
cholera were reported, and that night the air was of that 
peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind that seems to lie like 
lead on the brain and soul. 

"As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed 
to it. First, because the chance of your being taken ill is 
just as great as the chance of your being able to render us 
any help. To exchange the salubrious air of Brattleboro' 
for the pestilent atmosphere of this place with your system 
rendered sensitive by water-cure treatment would be ex- 
tremely dangerous. It is a source of constant gratitude to 
me that neither you nor father are exposed to the dangers 
here. Second, none of us are sick, and it is very uncer- 
tain whether we shall be, 

"July 4. All well. The meeting yesterday was very 
solemn and interesting. There is more or less sickness 



1849] CHOLEKA 117 

about lis, but no very dangerous cases. One hundred and 
twenty burials from cholera alone yesterday, yet to-day we 
see parties bent on pleasure or senseless carousing, while 
to-morrow and next day will witness a fresh harvest of 
death from them. How we can become accustomed to 
anything! A while ago ten a day dying of cholera struck 
terror to all hearts; but now the tide has surged up grad- 
ually until the deaths average over a hundred daily, and 
everybody is getting accustomed to it. Gentlemen make 
themselves agreeable to ladies by reciting the number of 
deaths in this house or that. This, together with talk of 
funerals, cholera medicines, cholera dietetics, and chloride 
of lime, form the ordinary staple of conversation. Serious 
persons, of course, throw in moral reflections to their taste. 

"July 10. Yesterday little Charley was taken ill, not 
seriously, and at any other season I should not be alarmed. 
Now, however, a slight illness seems like a death sentence, 
and I will not dissemble that I feel from the outset very 
little hope. I still think it best that you should not re- 
turn. By so doing you might lose all you have gained. 
You might expose yourself to a fatal incursion of disease. 
It is decidedly not your duty to do so. 

"July 12. Yesterday I carried Charley to Dr. Pulte, 
who spoke in such a manner as discouraged and frightened 
me. He mentioned dropsy on the brain as a possible 
result. I came home with a heavy heart, sorrowing, deso- 
late, and wishing my husband and father were here. 

"About one o'clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly 
opened my door, crying, ' Mrs. Stowe, Henry is vomiting. ' 
I was on my feet in an instant, and lifted up my heart for 
help. He was, however, in a few minutes relieved. Then 
I turned my attention to Charley, who was also suffering, 
put him into a wet sheet, and kept him there until he was 
in a profuse perspiration. He is evidently getting better, 
and is auspiciously cross. Never was crossness in a baby 



118 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1849 

more admired. Anna and I have said to each other exult- 
ingly a score of times, * How cross the little fellow is ! 
How he does scold ! ' 

"July 15. Since I last wrote, our house has been a 
perfect hospital, — Charley apparently recovering, but still 
weak and feeble, unable to walk or play, and so miserably 
fretful and unhappy. Sunday Anna and I were fairly 
stricken down, as many others are, with no particular 
illness, but with such miserable prostration. I lay on the 
bed all day reading my hymn-book and thinking over pas- 
sages of Scripture. 

"July 17. To-day we have been attending poor old 
Aunt Frankie's^ funeral. She died yesterday morning, 
taken sick the day before while washing. Good, honest, 
trustful old soul ! She was truly one who hungered and 
thirsted for righteousness. 

"Yesterday morning our poor little dog, Daisy, who 
had been ailing the day before, was suddenly seized with 
frightful spasms, and died in half an hour. Poor little 
affectionate thing! If I were half as good for my nature 
as she for hers I should be much better than I am. While 
we were all mourning over her the news came that Aunt 
Frankie was breathing her last. Hatty, Eliza, Anna, and 
I made her shroud yesterday, and this morning I made 
her cap. We have just come from her grave. 

"July 23. At last, my dear, the hand of the Lord 
hath touched us. We have been watching all day by the 
dying bed of little Charley, who is gradually sinking. 
After a partial recovery from the attack I described in my 
last letter he continued for some days very feeble, but still 
we hoped for recovery. About four days ago he was taken 
with decided cholera, and now there is no hope of his sur- 
viving this night. 

"Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do 
1 An old colored woman. 



1849] DEATH OF HER BABY BOY 119 

not return. All will be over before you could possibly 
get here, and the epidemic is now said by the physicians 
to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up. Let us not 
faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare not trust 
myself to say more, but shall write again soon. 

July 26. 

"My dear Husband, — At last it is over, and our dear 
little one is gone from us. He is now among the blessed. 
My Charley — my beautiful, loving, gladsome baby, so 
loving, so sweet, so full of life and hope and strength — 
now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the room below. 
Never was he anything to me but a comfort. He has been 
my pride and joy. Many a heartache has he cured for 
me. Many an anxious night have I held him to my 
bosom and felt the sorrow and loneliness pass out of me 
with the touch of his little warm hands. Yet I have just 
seen him in his death agony, looked on his imploring face 
when I could not help nor soothe nor do one thing, not 
one, to mitigate his cruel suffering, do nothing but pray 
in my anguish that he might die soon. I write as though 
there were no sorrow like my sorrow, yet there has been 
in this city, as in the land of Egypt, scarce a house with- 
out its dead. This heart-break, this anguish, has been 
everywhere, and when it will end God alone knows." 

Professor Stowe returned to Cincinnati with a new pur- 
pose in his mind. He had struggled through seventeen of 
the best years of his life serving Lane Seminary and the 
people of Cincinnati as far as in him lay. Now, two or 
three invitations had been received from the East, one of 
which (from Bowdoin College) he accepted with peculiar 
pleasure, because he graduated there, and passed in Bruns- 
wick his happy early years. He could not leave Lane 
Seminary until he should find some one to fill his place, but 
it was decided that Mrs. Stowe, with three of the children. 



120 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 

should leave Cincinnati in April and establish herself in a 
house in Brunswick, ready to receive the rest of the family. 

Of this journey Mrs. Stowe writes: — 

"The boat got into Pittsburgh between four and five 
on Wednesday. The agent for the Pennsylvania Canal 
came on board and soon filled out our tickets, calling my 
three chicks one and a half. We had a quiet and agree- 
able passage, and crossed the slides at five o'clock in the 
morning, amid exclamations of unbounded delight from all 
the children, to whom the mountain scenery was a new 
and amazing thing. We reached Hollidaysburg about 
eleven o'clock, and at two o'clock in the night were called 
up to get into the cars at Jacktown. Arriving at Phila- 
delphia about three o'clock in the afternoon, we took the 
boat, and railroad line for New York. 

"At Lancaster we telegraphed to Brooklyn, and when 
we arrived in New York, between ten and eleven at night, 
Cousin Augustus met us and took us over to Brooklyn. 
We had ridden three hundred miles since two o'clock that 
morning, and were very tired. ... I am glad we came 
that way, for the children have seen some of the finest 
scenery in our country, . . . Henry's people are more 
than ever in love with him, and have raised his salary to 
$3300, and given him a beautiful horse and carriage 
worth $600. . . . My health is already improved by the 
journey, and I was able to walk a good deal between the 
locks on the canal. As to furniture, I think that we may 
safely afford an outlay of $150, and that will purchase all 
that may be necessary to set us up, and then Ave can get 
more as we have means and opportunity. ... If I got 
anything for those pieces I wrote before coming away, I 
woiild like to be advised thereof by you. . . . My plan 
is to spend this week in Brooklyn, the next in Hartford, 
the next in Boston, and go on to Brunswick some time in 
May or June." 



1850] JOURNEY TO BRUNSWICK 121 

May 18, we find her writing from Boston, where she 
is staying with her brother. Rev. Edward Beecher : — 

"My dear Husband, — I came here from Hartford on 
Monday, and have since then been busily engaged in the 
business of buying and packing furniture. 

"I expect to go to Brunswick next Tuesday night by 
the Bath steamer, which way I take as the cheaper. My 
traveling expenses, when I get to Brunswick, including 
everything, will have been seventy-six dollars. . . . And 
now, lastly, my dear husband, you have never been want- 
ing ... in kindness, consideration, and justice, and I 
want you to reflect calmly how great a work has been im- 
posed upon me at a time when my situation particularly 
calls for rest, repose, and quiet. 

"To come alone such a distance with the whole charge 
of children, accounts, and baggage; to push my way 
through hurrying crowds, looking out for trunks, and bar- 
gaining with hackmen, has been a very severe trial of my 
strength, to say nothing of the usual fatigues of traveling." 

" It was at this time, " continues her son, " and as a result 
of the experiences of this trying period, that Mrs. Stowe 
wrote that little tract dear to so many Cliristian hearts, 
' Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline. ' " 

Few women have known greater earthly cares. That 
she saw her way through them, even while in the valley 
of darkness, and was able to guide others to the light, 
giving them the help and support by which she learned to 
live and to rejoice, this was her mission to the world. 



CHAPTER V 



BRUNSWICK 



On the eve of sailing for Brunswick, Mrs, Stowe writes 
to Mrs. Sykes (Miss May) : " I am wearied and worn out 
with seeing to bedsteads, tables, chairs, mattresses, with 
thinking about shipping my goods and making out accounts, 
and I have my trunk yet to pack, as I go on board the 
Bath steamer this evening. I beg you to look up Bruns- 
wick on the map; it is about half a day's ride in the cars 
from Boston. I expect to reach there by the way of Bath 
by to-morrow forenoon. There I have a house engaged 
and kind friends who offer every hospitable assistance. 
Come, therefore, to see me, and we will have a long talk 
in the pine woods, and knit up the whole history from the 
place where we left it." 

Before leaving Boston she had written to her husband 
in Cincinnati : " You are not able just now to bear any- 
thing, my dear husband, therefore trust all to me ; I never 
doubt or despair. I am already making arrangements with 
editors to raise money. 

"I have sent some overtures to Wright. If he accepts 
my pieces and pays you for them, take the money and use 
it as you see necessary ; if not, be sure and bring the pieces 
back to me. I am strong in spirit, and God who has been 
with me in so many straits will not forsake me now. I 
know Him well; He is my Father, and though I may be 
a blind and erring child. He will help me for all that. 
My trust through all errors and sins is in Him. He who 
helped poor timid Jacob through all his fears and appre- 



1850] THE FIKST SUMMEK 123 

hensions, who helped Abraham even -when he sinned, who 
was with David in his wanderings, and who held up the 
too confident Peter when he began to sink, — He will help 
US, and his arms are about us, so that we shall not sink, 
my dear husband." 

She writes from Brunswick the last of May: "After a 
week of most incessant northeast storm, most discouraging 
and forlorn to the children, the sun has at length come 
out. . . . There is a fair wind blowing, and every pro- 
spect, therefore, that our goods will arrive promptly from 
Boston, and that we shall be in our own house by next 
Aveek. Mrs. Upham ^ has done everything for me, giving 
up time and strength and taking charge of my affairs in 
a way without which we could not have got along at all in 
a strange place and in my present helpless condition. This 
family is delightful, there is such a perfect sweetness and 
quietude in all its movements. Not a harsh word or 
hasty expression is ever heard. It is a beautiful pattern 
of a Christian family, a beautiful exemplification of reli- 
gion." . . . 

The events of the first summer in Brunswick are graphi- 
cally described by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written to her 
sister in-law, Mrs. George Beecher, in December. 

" My dear Sister, — Is it really true that snow is on 
the ground and Christmas coming, and I have not written 
unto thee, most dear sister? No, I don't believe it! I 
haven't been so naughty — it's all a mistake — yes, writ- 
ten I must have — and written I have, too — in the night- 
watches as I lay on my bed — ^ such beautiful letters — I wish 
you had only received them ; but by day it has been hurry, 
hurry, hurry, and drive, drive, drive! or else the calm of 
a sick-room, ever since last spring. 

"I put off writing when your letter first came, because 
1 Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin College. 



124 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 

I meant to write you a long letter, — a full and complete 
one ; and so days slid by, — and became weeks, — and my 
little Charley came . . . etc. and etc. ! ! ! Sarah, when 
I look back, I wonder at myself, not that I forget any one 
thing that I should remember, but that I have remembered 
anything. From the time that I left Cincinnati with my 
children to come forth to a country that I knew not of 
almost to the present time, it has seemed as if I could 
scarcely breathe, I was so pressed with care. My head 
dizzy with the whirl of railroads and steamboats; then ten 
days' sojourn in Boston, and a constant toil and hurry in 
buying my furniture and equipments; and then landing in 
Brunswick in the midst of a drizzly, inexorable north- 
east storm, and beginning the work of getting in order a 
deserted, dreary, damp old house. All day long running 
from one thing to another, as, for example, thus : — 

" ' Mrs. Stowe, how shall I make this lounge, and what 
shall I cover the back with first 1 ' 

"Mrs. Stowe. 'With the coarse cotton in the closet.' 
" Woman. ' Mrs, Stowe, there is n't any more soap to 
clean the windows. ' 

"Mrs. Stowe. ' Where shall I get soap? ' 
" ' Here, H., run up to the store and get two bars.' 
" ' There is a man below wants to see Mrs. Stowe about 
the cistern. Before you go down, Mrs. Stowe, just show 
me how to cover this round end of the lounge. ' 

"' There 's a man up from the depot, and he says that 
a box has come for Mrs. Stowe, and it 's coming up to the 
house ; will you come down and see about it 1 ' 

" ' Mrs. Stowe, don't go till you have shown the man 
how to nail that carpet in the corner. He 's nailed it all 
crooked ; what shall he do ? The black thread is all used up, 
and what shall I do about putting gimp on the back of that 
sofa? Mrs. Stowe, there is a man come with a lot of pails 
and tinware from Furbish ; will you settle the bill now 1 ' 



1850] RESOURCE 125 

" * Mrs. Stowe, here is a letter just come from Boston 
inclosing that bill of lading; the man wants to know what 
he shall do with the goods. If you will tell me what to 
say, I will answer the letter for you. ' 

"'Mrs. Stowe, the meat-man is at the door. Hadn't 
we better get a little beefsteak, or something, for dinner ? ' 

" ' Shall Hatty go to Boardman's for some more black 
thread 1 ' 

" ' Mrs. Stowe, this cushion is an inch too wide for the 
frame. What shall we do now 1 ' 

" ' Mrs. Stowe, where are the screws of the black wal- 
nut bedstead ? ' 

" ' Here 's a man has brought in these bills for freight. 
Will you settle them now ? ' 

" ' Mrs. Stowe, I don't understand using this great 
needle. I can't make it go through the cushion; it sticks 
in the cotton.' 

"Then comes a letter from my husband, saying he is 
sick abed, and all but dead; don't ever expect to see his 
family again; wants to know how I shall manage, in case 
I am left a widow; knows we shall get in debt and never 
get out ; wonders at my courage ; thinks I am very san- 
guine; warns me to be prudent, as there won't be much 
to live on in case of his death, etc., etc., etc. I read the 
letter and poke it into the stove, and proceed. . . . 

"Some of my adventures were quite funny; as for 
example: I had in my kitchen-elect no sink, cistern, or 
any other water privileges, so I bought at the cotton fac- 
tory two of the great hogsheads they bring oil in, which 
here in Brunswick are often used for cisterns, and had 
them brought up in triumph to my yard, and was congratu- 
lating myself on my energy, when lo and behold! it was 
discovered that there was no cellar door except one in the 
kitchen, which was truly a strait and narrow way, down 
a long pair of stairs. Hereupon, as saith John Bunyan, 



126 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 

I fell into a muse, — how to get my cisterns into my cel- 
lar. In days of chivalry I might have got a knight to 
make me a breach through the foundation walls, but that 
was not to be thought of now, and my oil hogsheads, 
standing disconsolately in the yard, seemed to reflect no 
great credit on my foresight. In this strait I fell upon 
a real honest Yankee cooper, whom I besought, for the 
reputation of his craft and mine, to take my hogsheads to 
pieces, carry them down in staves, and set them up again, 
which the worthy man actually accomplished one fair 
summer forenoon, to the great astonishment of ' us Yan- 
kees. ' When my man came to put up the pump, he stared 
very hard to see my hogsheads thus translated and standing 
as innocent and quiet as could be in the cellar, and then I 
told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that I got 'em taken 
to pieces and put together, — just as if I had been always 
in the habit of doing such things. Professor Smith came 
down and looked very hard at them and then said, ' Well, 
nothing can beat a willful woman. ' Then followed divers 
negotiations with a very clever, but (with reverence) some- 
what lazy gentleman of jobs, who occupieth a carpenter's 
shop opposite to mine. This same John Titcomb, my 
very good friend, is a character peculiar to Yankeedom. 
He is part owner and landlord of the house I rent, and 
connected by birth with all the best families in town; a 
man of real intelligence, and good education, a great reader, 
and quite a thinker. Being of an ingenious turn, he does 
painting, gilding, staining, upholstery jobs, varnishing, all 
in addition to his primary trade of carpentry. But he is 
a man studious of ease, and fully possessed with the idea 
that man wants but little here below ; so he boards himself 
in his workshop on crackers and herring, washed down 
with cold water, and spends his time working, musing, 
reading new publications, and taking his comfort. In his 
shop you shall see a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, 



1850] VILLAGE LIFE 127 

gimlets, varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare 
old china, one or two fine portraits of his ancestry, a book- 
case full of books, the tooth of a whale, an old spinning- 
wheel and spindle, a lady's parasol frame, a church lamp 
to be mended, in short, Henry says Mr, Titcomb's shop is 
like the ocean; there is no end to the curiosities in it. 

"In all my moving and fussing Mr. Titcomb has been 
my right-hand man. Whenever a screw was loose, a nail 
to be driven, a lock mended, a pane of glass set, — and these 
cases were manifold, — he was always on hand. But my 
sink was no fancy job, and I believe nothing but a very 
particular friendship would have moved him to undertake 
it. So this same sink lingered in a precarious state for 
some weeks, and when I had nothing else to do, I used 
to call and do what I could in the way of enlisting the 
good man's sympathies in its behalf. 

"How many times I have been in and seated myself in 
one of the old rocking-chairs, and talked first of the news 
of the day, the railroad, the last proceedings in Congress, 
the probabilities about the millennium, and thus brought 
the conversation by little and little round to my sink! . . . 
because, till the sink was done, the pump could not be 
put up, and we couldn't have any rain-water. Sometimes 
my courage would quite fail me to introduce the subject, 
and I would talk of everything else, turn and get out of 
the shop, and then turn back as if a thought had just 
struck my mind, and say : — 

" ' Oh, Mr, Titcomb ! about that sink 1 ' 

" ' Yes, ma'am, I was thinking about going down street 
this afternoon to look out stuff for it, ' 

" ' Yes, sir, if you would be good enough to get it done 
as soon as possible ; we are in great need of it. ' 

" ' I think there 's no hurry. I believe we are going 
to have a dry time now, so that you could not catch any 
water, and you won't need a pump at present,' 



128 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 

"These negotiations extended from the first of June to 
the first of July, and at last my sink was completed, and 
so also was a new house spout, concerning which I had 
had divers communings with Deacon Dunning of the Bap- 
tist church. Also during this time good Mrs. Mitchell and 
myself made two sofas, or lounges, a barrel chair, divers 
bedspreads, pillow cases, pillows, bolsters, mattresses; we 
painted rooms; we revarnished furniture; we — v/hsit did 
7i't we do? 

"Then came on Mr. Stowe; and then came the eighth 
of July and my little Charley. I was really glad for an 
excuse to lie in bed, for I was full tired, I can assure you. 
Well, I was what folks call very comfortable for two 
weeks, when my nurse had to leave me. . . . 

"During this time I have employed my leisure hours in 
making up my engagements with newspaper editors. I 
have written more than anybody, or I myself, would have 
thought. I have taught an hour a day in our school, and 
I have read two hours every evening to the children. The 
children study English history in school, and I am reading 
Scott's historic novels in their order. To-night I finish 
the ' Abbot; ' shall begin ' Kenilworth ' next week; yet I 
am constantly pursued and haunted by the idea that I 
don't do anything. Since I began this note I have been 
called off at least a dozen times; once for the fish-man, to 
buy a codfish; once to see a man who had brought me 
some barrels of apples; once to see a book-man; then to 
Mrs. Upham, to see about a drawing I promised to make 
for her; then to nurse the baby; then into the kitchen to 
make a chowder for dinner; and now I am at it again, for 
nothing but deadly determination enables me ever to write ; 
it is rowing against wind and tide. 

"I suppose you think now I have begun, I am never 
going to stop, and, in truth, it looks like it; but the spirit 
moves now and I must obey. 



1850] HOMESICKNESS 129 

"Christmas is coming, and our little household is all 
alive with preparations; every one collecting their little 
gifts with wonderful mystery and secrecy. . . . 

"To tell the truth, dear, I am getting tired; my neck 
and back ache, and I must come to a close. 

"Your ready kindness to me in the spring I felt very 
much; and ivhy I did not have the sense to have sent 
you one line just by way of acknowledgment, I 'm sure I 
don't know; I felt just as if I had, till I awoke, and be- 
hold ! I had not. But, my dear, if my wits are somewhat 
wool-gathering and unsettled, my heart is as true as a star. 
I love you, and have thought of you often. 

"This fall I have felt often sad, lonesome, both very 
unusual feelings with me in these busy days; but the 
breaking away from my old home, and leaving father and 
mother, and coming to a strange place affected me natu- 
rally. In those sad hours my thoughts have often turned 
to George; I have thought with encouragement of his 
blessed state, and hoped that I should soon be there, too. 
I have many warm and kind friends here, and have been 
treated with great attention and kindness. Brunswick is 
a delightful residence, and if you come East next summer, 
you must come to my new home. George ^ would delight 
to go a-fishing with the children, and see the ships, and 
sail in the sailboats, and all that. 

"Give Aunt Harriet's love to him, and tell him when 
he gets to be a painter to send me a picture. 

"Affectionately yours, 

"H. Stowe." 

Her spirit was still unsatisfied. In spite of striving 

and incessant devotion, there was yet a deeper cry in her 

for humanity, which had not found expression. Few 

women had suffered more or had enjoyed more than she ; 

1 Her brother George's onlj^ child. 



130 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 

her experience was ripe for others, and her joy was large 
enough to give hope to the down-trodden. 

Upon her way to Brunswick she stopped, as we have 
said, at the house of her brother in Boston, Dr. Edward 
Beecher. Daniel Webster's seventh of March speech was 
still ringing in the ears of the people. The hated Compro- 
mise had been defended by their idol, and he was cast into 
the dust. "Ichabod," Whittier cried, "so fallen, so lost! 
' When honor dies the man is dead. ' " 

The hearts of men were aflame at the Fugitive Slave 
Act, which was then being debated and finally passed by 
the Congress of that year. The conversation turned upon 
this topic, and heart-rending scenes were described of fami- 
lies broken up, men frozen by flight in winter through 
rivers and pathless forests on their way to Canada. After 
Mrs. Stowe reached Brunswick Mrs. Edward Beecher wrote 
to her sister: "Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I 
would write something to make this whole nation feel what 
an accursed thing slavery is." 

One of Mrs. Stowe's children remembers well the 
scene in the little parlor in Brunswick when the letter 
alluded to was received. Mrs. Stowe herself read it aloud 
to the assembled family, and when she came to the pas- 
sage, "I would write something that would make this 
whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is," Mrs. 
Stowe rose up from her chair, crushing the letter in her 
hand, and with an expression on her face that stamped 
itself on the mind of her child, said: "I will write some- 
thing. I will if I live." 

In December, Mrs. Stowe sent a message to her sister: 
"Tell Katy I thank her for her letter and will answer it. 
As long as the baby sleeps with me nights I can't do 
much at anything, but I will do it at last. I will write 
that thing if I live. 

" What are folks in general saying about the slave law, 



1850] FIRST SKETCH FOR THE "ERA" 131 

and the stand taken by Boston ministers universally, ex- 
cept Edward? 

"To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I feel as 
if I should be willing to sink with it, were all this sin and 
misery to sink in the sea. ... I wish father would come 
on to Boston, and preach on the Fugitive Slave Law, as 
he once preached on the slave-trade, when I was a little 
girl in Litchfield. I sobbed aloud in one pew and Mrs. 
Judge Reeves in another. I wish some Martin Luther 
would arise to set this community right." 

She also writes to Professor Stowe at Christmas time 
and cheers him up by telling him of stories she had been 
writing for the "Era," and other papers, in which he 
figures as a farmer, the facts being drawn from life ! ! But 
the New Year had not arrived when she records days of 
terrible cold, which made it almost impossible to hold a 
pen. 

December 29. "We have had terrible weather here. 
I remember such a storm when I was a child in Litch- 
field. Father and mother went to Warren, and were 
almost lost in the snowdrifts. 

" Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The wind 
howled, and the house rocked just as our old Litchfield 
house used to. The cold has been so intense that the 
children have kept begging to get up from table at meal- 
times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight stoves warm 
all but the floor, — heat your head and keep your feet 
freezing. If I sit by the open fire in the parlor my back 
freezes; if I sit in my bedroom and try to write my head 
aches and my feet are cold. I am projecting a sketch for 
the * Era ' on the capabilities of liberated blacks to take 
care of themselves. Can't you find out for me how much 
Willie Watson has paid for the redemption of his friends, 
and get any items in figures of that kind that you can pick 
up in Cincinnati ? . . . When I have a headache and feel 



132 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 

sick, as I do to-day, there is actually not a place in the 
house where I can lie down and take a nap without being 
disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door is the 
dining-room, and the girls practice there two hours a day. 
If I lock my door and lie down, some one is sure to be 
rattling the latch before fifteen minutes have passed. . . . 
There is no doubt in my mind that our expenses this year 
will come two hundred dollars, if not three, beyond our 
salary. We shall be able to come through, notwithstand- 
ing, but I don't want to feel obliged to work as hard 
every year as I have this. I can earn four hundred dollars 
a year by writing, but I don't want to feel that I must, 
and when weary with teaching the children, and tending 
the baby, and buying provisions, and mending dresses, 
and darning stockings, sit down and write a piece for some 
paper. 

"Ever since we left Cincinnati to come here the good 
hand of God has been visibly guiding our way. Through 
what difficulties have we been brought! Though we knew 
not where means were to come from, yet means have been 
furnished every step of the way, and in every time of need. 
I was just in some discouragement with regard to my writ- 
ing; thinking that the editor of the ' Era ' was overstocked 
with contributors, and would not want my services another 
year, and lo ! he sends me one hundred dollars, and ever 
so many good Avords with it. Our income this year will 
be seventeen hundred dollars in all, and I hope to bring 
our expenses within thirteen hundred." 

Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote to her 
son Charles of this period of her life: "I well remember 
the winter you were a baby and I was writing * Uncle 
Tom's Cabin.' My heart was bursting with the anguish 
excited by the cruelty and injustice our nation was show- 
ing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little. 



1851] THE WRITING OF "UNCLE TOM " 133 

and to cause my cry for them to be heard. I remember 
many a night weeping over you as you lay sleeping beside 
me, and I thought of the slave mothers whose babes were 
torn from them." 

In April the first chapter of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
was dispatched to Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, the editor of the 
"National Era" in Washington. In July, Mrs. Stowe 
wrote as follows : — 

Brunswick, July 9, 1851. 
Frederick Douglass, Esq. : 

Si7% — You may perhaps have noticed in your editorial 
readings a series of articles that I am furnishing for the 
"Era" under the title of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life 
among the Lowly." 

In the course of my story the scene will fall upon a 
cotton plantation. I am very desirous, therefore, to gain 
information from one who has been an actual laborer on 
one, and it occurred to me that in the circle of your ac- 
quaintance there might be one who would be able to com- 
municate to me some such information as I desire. I 
have before me an able paper written by a Southern 
planter, in which the details and modus operandi are given 
from his point of sight. I am anxious to have something 
more from another standpoint. I wish to be able to make 
a picture that shall be graphic and true to nature in its 
details. Such a person as Henry Bibb, if in the country, 
might give me just the kind of information I desire. 
You may possibly know of some other person. I will sub- 
join to this letter a list of questions, which in that case 
you will do me a favor by inclosing to the individual, with 
the request that he will at earliest convenience answer 
them. 

For some few weeks past I have received your paper 
through the mail, and have read it with great interest, 



134 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1851 

and desire to return my acknowledgments for it. It will 
be a pleasure to me at some time when less occupied to 
contribute something to its columns. I have noticed with 
regret your sentiments on two subjects, — the church and 
African colonization, . . . with the more regret because I 
think you have a considerable share of reason for your 
feelings on both these subjects; but I Avould willingly, if 
I could, modify your views on both points. 

In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery." 
There is a sense in which this may be true. The Ameri- 
can church of all denominations, taken as a body, com- 
prises the best and most conscientious people in the coun- 
try. I do not say it comprises none but these, or that 
none such are found out of it, but only if a census were 
taken of the purest and most high-principled men and 
women of the country, the majority of them would be 
found to be professors of religion in some of the vari- 
ous Christian denominations. This fact has given to the 
church great weight in this country, — the general and pre- 
dominant spirit of intelligence and probity and piety of its 
majority has given it that degree of weight that it has the 
power to decide the great moral questions of the day. 
Whatever it unitedly and decidedly sets itself against as 
moral evil it can put down. In this sense the church is 
responsible for the sin of slavery. Dr. Barnes has beauti- 
fully and briefly expressed this on the last page of his 
work on slavery, when he says: "Not all the force out of 
the church could sustain slavery an hour if it were not 
sustained in it." It then appears that the church has the 
power to put an end to this evil and does not do it. In 
this sense she may be said to be pro-slavery. But the 
church has the same power over intemperance, and Sab- 
bath-breaking, and sin of all kinds. There is not a doubt 
that if the moral power of the church were brought up to 
the New Testament standpoint it is sufiicient to put an 



1851] ANTI-SLAVERY 135 

end to all these as well as to slavery. But I would ask 
you, Would you consider it a fair representation of the 
Christian church in this country to say that it is pro-intem- 
perance, pro- Sabbath-breaking, and pro everything that it 
might put down if it were in a higher state of moral feel- 
ing? If you should make a list of all the abolitionists of 
the country, I think that you would find a majority of 
them in the church, — certainly some of the most influen- 
tial and efficient ones are ministers. 

I am a minister's daughter, and a minister's wife, and 
I have had six brothers in the ministry (one is in heaven) ; 
I certainly ought to know something of the feelings of 
ministers on this subject. I was a child in 1820 when 
the Missouri question was agitated, and one of the strong- 
est and deepest impressions on my mind was that made by 
my father's sermons and prayers, and the anguish of his 
soul for the poor slave at that time. I remember his 
preaching drawing tears down the hardest faces of the old 
farmers in his congregation. 

I well remember his prayers morning and evening in 
the family for "poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa," that the 
time of her deliverance might come; prayers ofi"ered with 
strong crying and tears, and which indelibly impressed my 
heart and made me what I am from my very soul, the 
enemy of all slavery. Every brother I have has been in 
his sphere a leading anti-slavery man. One of them was 
to the last the bosom friend and counselor of Lovejoy, 
As for myself and husband, we have for the last seventeen 
years lived on the border of a slave State, and Ave have 
never shrunk from the fugitives, and we have helped them 
with all we had to give. I have received the children of 
liberated slaves into a family school, and taught them with 
my own children, and it has been the influence that we 
found in the church and by the altar that has made us do 
all this. Gather up all the sermons that have been pub- 



136 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1852 

listed, on this offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave 
Law, and you will find that those against it are numeri- 
cally more than those in its favor, and yet some of the 
strongest opponents have not published their sermons. 
Out of thirteen ministers who meet with my husband 
weekly for discussion of moral subjects, only three are 
found who will acknowledge or obey this law in any 
shape. 

After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your 
oppressed race does lie in the church, — in hearts united to 
Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls of the 
needy, and precious shall their blood be in his sight." 
Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is for you, 
and He has not forgotten his church, misguided and erring 
though it be. I have looked all the field over with de- 
spairing eyes; I see no hope but in Him. This movement 
must and will become a purely religious one. The light 
will spread in churches, the tone of feeling will rise, Chris- 
tians North and South will give up all connection with, 
and take up their testimony against, slavery, and thus the 
work will be done. 

The great story was at last finished in "The National 
Era, " April, 1852. She had put her life-blood, her prayers, 
and her tears into the work; yet she had no reason to 
know that her labors were to find response in the world. 

"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office," she 
says, "I sat alone reading Horace Mann's eloquent plea 
for the young men and women, then about to be con- 
signed to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexan- 
dria, Virginia, — a plea impassioned, eloquent, but vain, 
as all other pleas on that side had ever proved in all courts 
hitherto. It seemed that there was no hope, that no- 
body would hear, nobody would read, nobody pity ; that 
this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims 



1852] DOUBTFUL OF KESULT 137 

into the free States, might at last even threaten them in 
Canada. " 

She began to reflect if she had done all in her power, 
and sitting down again at her desk, she wrote letters to 
Prince Albert, to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls of 
Carlisle and Shaftesbury, to Macaulay, Dickens, and others 
whom she knew to be interested in the cause of anti- 
slavery. These she ordered to be sent to their several 
addresses, accompanied by the very earliest copies of her 
book that should be printed. 

Very soon she was assured of the success of her sketches 
in book form. The whole year's work in "The National 
Era " brought her only three hundred dollars ; but Mr. 
Jewett, a Boston publisher, having offered to bring it out 
immediately in one volume, three thousand copies were 
sold the first day of publication. 

She began to reflect how the subject had lain dormant 
in her mind since she was a child, how she had been led 
step by step to do her work, and a sense of detachment 
grew upon her daily. 

The modesty of Mrs. Stowe's demeanor throughout the 
altogether extraordinary experience which came to her 
after the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is to be un- 
derstood only by looking upon her life from her own stand- 
point. She was pursued by the thought that the freedom 
of the slaves was not yet accomplished, and although the 
hearts of good men were hot with desire to achieve this 
end, no one could see how the great result was to be won. 
She had done something, she said to herself; God had 
stirred the hearts of men through her, but what more could 
be done! This was her constant cry, her ever present 
thought. Letters of congratulation poured in upon her 
and were gratefully received. The well known men and 
women, both of Europe and America, responded to her 
appeal, but she was entirely spent, and could not see the 






138 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1852 

way. Soon after the appearance of her book, she felt the 
need of change, and left home, going to stop for a while 
with her brother Henry, where she could rest, and at 
the same time watch the progress of events. She soon 
wrote to her husband : — 

"The mother of the Edmondson girls [two slave girls 
formerly, redeemed by the Plymouth Church at the instance 
of Henry Ward Beecher], now aged and feeble, is in the 
city. I did not actually know when I wrote ' Uncle Tom ' 
of a living example in Avhich Christianity had reached its 
fullest development under the crushing wrongs of slavery, 
but in this woman I see it. I never knew before what I 
co\ild feel till, with her sorrowful, patient eyes upon me, 
she told me her history and begged my aid. The expression 
of her face as she spoke, and the depth of patient sorrow 
in her eyes, was beyond anything I ever saw. 

" ' Well, ' said I, when she had finished, ' set your heart 
at rest; you and your children shall be redeemed. If I 
can't raise the money otherwise, I will pay it myself.' 
You should have seen the wonderfully sweet, solemn look 
she gave me as she said, ' The Lord bless you, my child ! ' 

"I have received a sweet note from Jenny Lind, 
with her name and her husband's with which to head my 
subscription list. They give a hundred dollars. Another 
hundred is subscribed by Mr. Bowen in his wife's name, 
and I have put my own name down for an equal amount. 
A lady has given me twenty-five dollars, and Mr. Storrs 
has pledged me fifty dollars. Milly and I are to meet the 
ladies of Henry's and Dr. Cox's churches to-morrow, and 
she is to tell them her story. I have written to Drs, 
Bacon and Dutton in New Haven to secure a similar meet- 
ing of ladies there. I mean to have one in Boston, and 
another in Portland. It will do good to the givers as 
well as to the receivers. 

"But all this time I have been so longing to get your 



1852] PRACTICAL WORK FOR SLAVES 139 

letter from New Haven, for I heard it was there. It is 
not fame nor praise that contents me. I seem never to 
have needed love so much as now. I long to hear you 
say how much you love me. Dear one, if this effort im- 
pedes my journey home, and wastes some of my strength, 
you will not murmur. When I see this Christlike soul 
standing so patiently bleeding, yet forgiving, I feel a 
sacred call to be the helper of the helpless, and it is better 
that my own family do without me for a while longer than 
that this mother lose all. I must redeem her. 

"New Haven, June 2. My old woman's case pro- 
gresses gloriously. I am to see the ladies of this place 
to-morrow. Four hundred dollars were contributed by 
individuals in Brooklyn, and the ladies who took subscrip- 
tion papers at the meeting will undoubtedly raise two 
hundred dollars more." 

Before leaving New York, Mrs. Stowe gave Milly Ed- 
mondson her check for the entire sum necessary to pur- 
chase her own freedom and that of her children, and sent 
her home rejoicing. That this sum was made up to her 
by the generous contributions of those to whom she ap- 
pealed is shown by a note written to her husband jn July. 
She says : — 

" Had a very kind note from A. Lawrence inclosing a 
twenty dollar gold piece for the Edmondsons. Isabella's 
ladies gave me twenty-five dollars, so you see our check is 
more than paid already." 

Although during her visit in New York, Mrs. Stowe 
made many new friends, and was overwhelmed with con- 
gratulations and praise of her book, the most pleasing inci- 
dent of this time seems to have been an epistolatory inter- 
view with Jenny Lind (Goldschmidt). In writing of it 
to her husband she says : — 

" Weil, we have heard Jenny Lind, and the affair was 
a bewildering dream of sweetness and beauty. Her face 



140 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

and movements are full of poetry and feeling. She has 
the artless grace of a little child, the poetic efifect of a 
wood-nymph, is airy, light, and graceful. 

" We had first-rate seats, and how do you think we got 
them ? "When Mr. Howard went early in the morning for 
tickets, Mr. Goldschmidt told him it was impossible to get 
any good ones, as they were all sold. Mr. Howard said 
he regretted that, on Mrs. Stowe's account, as she was 
very desirous of hearing Jenny Lind. ' Mrs. Stowe ! ' 
exclaimed Mr. Goldschmidt, ' the author of "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin 1 " Indeed, she shall have a seat, whatever hap- 
pens ! ' Thereupon he took his hat and went out, return- 
ing shortly with tickets for two of the best seats in the 
house, inclosed in an envelope directed to me in his wife's 
hand-writing. To-day I sent a note of acknowledgment 
with a copy of my book. I am most happy to have seen 
her, for she is a noble creature." 

In the " History of the United States » by Mr. J. F. 
Rhodes there is a brief critical review of Mrs. Stowe's 
work which may be received as the ultimate view of pos- 
terity. The historian says : " There was a correct picture of 
the essential features of slavery in ' Uncle Tom's Cabin, ' 
the book which everybody read. The author of it had 
* but one purpose, to show the institution of slavery truly 
just as it existed. While she had not the facts which 
a critical historian would have collected, — for the ' Key 
to Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was not compiled until after the 
novel was written, — she used with the intuition of genius 
the materials gained through personal observation, and 
the result was what she desired." Again he continues: 
"One of the finest touches in ' Uncle Tom ' is his joyful 
expression when told by his good and indulgent master that 
he should be set free and sent back to his old home in 
Kentucky. In attributing the common desire of human- 



1853] HISTORY OF UNCLE TOM BY MRS. STOWE 141 

ity to the negro, the author was as true as she was effec- 
tive." 



A perfect history of the writing of " Uncle Tom " and 
of the effect produced by its appearance is given by Mrs. 
Stowe in the form of an introduction to the illustrated 
edition published many years later. We cannot do better 
than to repeat exactly this eloquent story of her success. 
The account she gives is unvarnished and unexaggerated. 
We can study in this paper the wonderful change which 
has taken place in her style when we compare these pages 
with her early letters. 

" The author of ' Uncle Tom ' had for many years lived 
in Ohio on the confines of a slave state, and had thus been 
made familiar with facts and occurrences in relation to the 
institution of American slavery. Some of the most har- 
rowing incidents related in the story had from time to time 
come to her knowledge in conversation with former slaves 
now free in Ohio. The cruel sale and separation of a mar- 
ried woman from her husband, narrated in Chapter XII., 
* Select Incidents of Lawful Trade, ' had passed under her 
own eye while passenger on a steamboat on the Ohio 
River. Her husband and brother had once been obliged 
to flee with a fugitive slave woman by night, as described 
in Chapter IX., and she herself had been called to write 
the letters for a former slave woman, servant in her own 
family, to a slave husband in Kentucky, who, trusted 
with unlimited liberty, free to come and go on business 
between Kentucky and Ohio, still refused to break his 
pledge of honor to his master, though that master from year 
to year deferred the keeping of his promise of freedom to the 
slave. It was the simple honor and loyalty of this Chris- 
tian black man, who remained in slavery rather than violate 
a trust, that first impressed her with the possibility of such 
a character as, years after, was delineated in Uncle Tom. 



142 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

"From time to time incidents were brought to her 
knowledge which deepened her horror of slavery. In her 
own family she had a private school for her children, and 
as there was no provision for the education of colored chil- 
dren in her vicinity, she allowed them the privilege of 
attending. One day she was suddenly surprised by a visit 
from the mother of one of the brightest and most amusing 
of these children. It appeared that the child had never 
been emancipated, and was one of the assets of an estate 
in Kentucky, and had been seized and carried off by one 
of the executors, and was to be sold by the sheriff at auc- 
tion to settle the estate. The sum for the little one's ran- 
som was made up by subscription in the neighborhood, 
but the incident left a deep mark in Mrs. Stowe's mind as 
to the practical workings of the institution of slavery. 

"But it was not for many years that she felt any call to 
make use of the materials thus accumulating. In fact, it 
was a sort of general impression upon her mind, as upon 
that of many humane people in those days, that the sub- 
ject was so dark and painful a one, so involved in diffi- 
culty and obscurity, so utterly beyond human hope or 
help, that it was of no use to read, or think, or distress 
one's self about it. There was a class of professed Aboli- 
tionists in Cincinnati and the neighboring regions, but they 
were unfashionable persons and few in number. Like all 
asserters of pure abstract right as applied to human affairs, 
they were regarded as a species of moral monomaniacs, 
who, in the consideration of one class of interests and 
wrongs, had lost sight of all proportion and all good judg- 
ment. Both in church and in state they were looked upon 
as ' those that troubled Israel. ' 

"It was a general saying among conservative and saga- 
cious people that this subject was a dangerous one to in- 
vestigate, and that nobody could begin to read and think 
upon it without becoming practically insane; moreover, 



1853] PKOFESSOR STOWE'S HOUSE A REFUGE 143 

that it was a subject of such delicacy that no discussion of 
it could be held in the free States without impinging upon 
the sensibilities of the slave States, to whom alone the 
management of the matter belonged. 

"So when Dr. Bailey — a wise, temperate, and just 
man, a model of courtesy in speech and writing — came to 
Cincinnati and set up an anti-slavery paper, proposing a 
fair discussion of the subject, there was an immediate ex- 
citement. On two occasions a mob led by slaveholders 
from Kentucky attacked his office, destroyed his printing- 
press, and threw his types into the Ohio River. The 
most of the Cincinnati respectability, in church and state, 
contented themselves on this occasion with reprobating the 
imprudence of Dr. Bailey in thus * arousing the passions 
of our fellow-citizens of Kentucky.' In these mobs and 
riots the free colored people were threatened, maltreated, 
abused, and often had to flee for their lives. Even the 
servants of good families were often chased to the very 
houses of their employers, who rescued them with diffi- 
culty; and the story was current in those days of a brave 
little woman who defended her black waiter, standing, 
pistol in hand, on her own doorstep, and telling the mob 
face to face that they should not enter except over her 
dead body. 

"Professor Stowe's house was more than once a refuge 
for frightened fugitives on whom the very terrors of death 
had fallen, and the inmates slept with arms in the house 
and a large bell ready to call the young men of the adjoin- 
ing Institution, in case the mob should come up to search 
the house. Nor Avas this a vain or improbable suggestion, 
for the mob in their fury had more than once threatened 
to go up and set fire to Lane Seminary, where a large body 
of the students were known to be abolitionists. Only the 
fact that the Institution was two miles from the city, with 
a rough and muddy road up a long high hill, proved its 



144 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

salvation. Cincinnati mud, far known for its depth and 
tenacity, had sometimes its advantages. 

"The general policy of the leaders of society, in cases of 
such disturbances, was after the good old pattern in Judaea, 
where a higher One had appeared, who disturbed the 
traders in swine ; ' they besought him that he would depart 
out of their coasts. ' Dr. Bailey at last was induced to 
remove his paper to Washington, and to conduct his in- 
vestigation under the protection of the national Capitol, — 
and there for years he demonstrated the fact that the truth 
may be spoken plainly yet courteously, and with all honor- 
able and Christian fairness, on the most exciting of sub- 
jects. In justice to the South it must be said that his 
honesty, courage, and dignity of character won for him 
friends even among the most determined slaveholders. 
Manly men have a sort of friendship for an open, honest 
opponent, like that of Richard Coeur de Lion for Saladin. 

"Far otherwise was the fate of Lovejoy, who essayed an 
anti-slavery paper at Alton, Illinois. A mob from Mis- 
souri besieged the office, set the house on fire, and shot 
him at the door. It was for some days reported that Dr. 
Beecher's son. Rev. Edward Beecher, known to have been 
associated with Lovejoy at this period, had been killed 
at the same time. Such remembrances show how well 
grounded were the fears which attended every effort to 
agitate this subject. People who took the side of justice 
and humanity in those days had to count the cost and pay 
the price of their devotion. In those times, when John 
G. Fee, a young Kentucky student in Lane Seminary, lib- 
erated his slaves, and undertook to preach the gospel of 
emancipation in Kentucky, he was chased from the State, 
and disinherited by his own father. Berea College, for 
the education of colored and white, stands to-day a tri- 
umphant monument of his persistence in well-doing. Mr. 
Van Zandt, a Kentucky farmer, set free his slaves and 



1853] HISTORY OF UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, CONTINUED 145 

came over and bought a farm in Ohio. Subsequently, from 
an impulse of humanity, he received and protected fugitive 
slaves in the manner narrated in Chapter IX. of ' Uncle 
Tom's Cabin.' For this he was seized, imprisoned, his 
property attached, and he was threatened Avith utter ruin. 
Salmon P. Chase, then a rising young lawyer in Cincin- 
nati, had the bravery to appear as his lawyer. As he 
was leaving the court-room, after making his plea, one of 
the judges remarked, ' There goes a young man who has 
ruined himself to-day, ' and the sentiment was echoed by 
the general voice of society. The case went against Van 
Zandt, and Mr. Chase carried it up to the Supreme Court 
of the United States, which, utterly ignoring argument 
and justice, decided it against him. But a few years 
more, and Salmon P. Chase was himself Chief Justice of 
the United States. It was one of those rare dramatic 
instances in which courage and justice sometimes bring a 
reward even in this life. 

"After many years' residence in Ohio, Mrs. Stowe re- 
turned to make her abode in New England, just in the 
height of the excitement produced by the Fugitive Slave 
Law. Settled in Brunswick, Maine, she was in constant 
communication with friends in Boston, who wrote to her 
from day to day of the terror and despair which that law 
had occasioned to industrious, worthy colored people who 
had from time to time escaped to Boston, and were living 
in peace and security. She heard of families broken up 
and fleeing in the dead of winter to the frozen shores of 
Canada. But what seemed to her more inexplicable, more 
dreadful, was the apparent apathy of the Christian world 
of the free North to these proceedings. The pulpits that 
denounced them were exceptions; the voices raised to 
remonstrate few and far between. 

"In New England, as at the West, professed abolition- 
ists were a small, despised, unfashionable band, whose 



146 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

constant remonstrances from year to year had been disre- 
garded as the voices of impracticable fanatics. It seemed 
now as if the system once confined to the Southern States 
was rousing itself to new efforts to extend itself all over 
the TSTorth, and to overgrow the institutions of free society. 

"With astonishment and distress Mrs. Stowe heard on 
all sides, from humane and Christian people, that the 
slavery of the blacks was a guaranteed constitutional right, 
and that all opposition to it endangered the national 
Union. With this conviction she saw that even earnest 
and tender-hearted Christian people seemed to feel it a 
duty to close their eyes, ears, and hearts to the harrowing 
details of slavery, to put down all discussion of the sub- 
ject, and even to assist slave owners to recover fugitives 
in Northern States. She said to herself, these people 
cannot know what slavery is; they do not see what they 
are defending; and hence arose a purpose to write some 
sketches which should show to the world slavery as she 
had herself seen it. Pondering this subject, she was one 
day turning over a little bound volume of an anti-slavery 
magazine, edited by Mrs. Dr. Bailey, of Washington, and 
there she read the account of the escape of a woman with 
her child on the ice of the Ohio River from Kentucky. 
The incident was given by an eye-witness, one who had 
helped the woman to the Ohio shore. This formed the 
first salient point of the story. She began to meditate. 
The faithful slave husband in Kentucky occurred to her 
as a pattern of Uncle Tom, and the scenes of the story 
began gradually to form themselves in her mind. 

"The first part of the book ever committed to writing 
was the death of Uncle Tom. This scene presented itself 
almost as a tangible vision to her mind while sitting at the 
communion table in the little church in Brunswick. She 
was perfectly overcome by it, and could scarcely restrain 
the convulsion of tears and sobbings that shook her frame. 



1853] HISTORY OF UNCLE TOM'S CABIN CONTINUED 147 

She hastened home and wrote it, and her husband being 
away she read it to her two sons of ten and twelve years 
of age. The little fellows broke out into convulsions of 
weeping, one of them saying, through his sobs, ' Oh ! 
mamma, slavery is the most cursed thing in the world ! ' 
From that time the story can less be said to have been 
composed by her than imposed upon her. Scenes, inci- 
dents, conversations rushed vipon her with a vividness and 
importunity that would not be denied. The book insisted 
upon getting itself into being, and would take no denial. 
After the two or three first chapters were written, she 
wrote to Dr. Bailey of the ' National Era ' that she was 
planning a story that might probably run through sev- 
eral numbers of the ' Era. ' In reply she received an in- 
stant application for it, and began immediately to send off 
weekly installments. She was then in the midst of heavy 
domestic cares, with a young infant, with a party of pupils 
in her family to whom she was imparting daily lessons 
with her own children, and with untrained servants requir- 
ing constant supervision, but the story was so much more 
intense a reality to her than any other earthly thing that 
the weekly installment never failed. It was there in her 
mind day and night waiting to be written, and requiring 
but a few moments to bring it into visible characters. 

"The weekly number was always read to the family 
circle before it was sent away, and all the household kept 
up an intense interest in the progress of the story. 

" As the narrative appeared in the ' Era, ' sympathetic 
words began to come to her from old workers who had 
long been struggling in the anti-slavery cause. She visited 
Boston, went to the Anti-Slavery rooms, and reinforced 
her repertoire of facts by such documents as Theodore D. 
Weld's ' Slavery As It Is, ' the Lives of Josiah Henson 
and Lewis Clarke, particulars from both whose lives were 
inwoven with the story in the characters of Uncle Tom 
and George Harris. 



148 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

"In shaping her material the author had but one pur- 
pose, to show the institution of slavery truly, just as it 
existed. She had visited in Kentucky, had formed the 
acquaintance of people who were just, upright, and gener- 
ous, and yet slaveholders. She had heard their views and 
appreciated their situation; she felt that justice required 
that their difficulties should be recognized and their virtues 
acknowledged. It was her object to show that the evils 
of slavery were the inherent evils of a bad system, and 
not always the fault of those who had become involved in 
it and were its actual administrators. 

" Then she was convinced that the presentation of slavery 
alone, in its most dreadful forms, would be a picture of 
such unrelieved horror and darkness as nobody could be 
induced to look at. Of set purpose, she sought to light up 
the darkness by humorous and grotesque episodes, and the 
presentation of the milder and more amusing phases of 
slavery, for which her recollection of the never-failing wit 
and drollery of her former colored friends in Ohio gave 
her abundant material. As the story progressed, a young 
publisher, J. P. Jewett, of Boston, set his eye upon it, 
and made overtures for the publication of it in book form, 
to which she consented. After a while she had a letter 
from him expressing his fears that she was making the 
story too long for a one- volume publication. He reminded 
her that it was an unpopular subject, and that people 
would not willingly hear much about it; that one short 
volume might possibly sell, but if it grew to two it might 
prove a fatal obstacle to its success. Mrs. Stowe replied 
that she did not make the story, that the story made itself, 
and that she could not stop it till it was done. The feel- 
ing that pursued her increased in intensity to the last, till 
with the death of Uncle Tom it seemed as if the whole 
vital force had left her. A feeling of profound discourage- 
ment came over her. Would anybody read it? Would 



\ 



1853] DESPONDENCY OF THE AUTHOK 149 

anybody listen ? Would this appeal, into which she had 
put heart, soul, mind, and strength, which she had written 
with her heart's blood, — would it, too, go for nothing, as 
so many prayers and groans and entreaties of these poor 
suffering souls had already gone? There had just been 
a party of slaves who had been seized and thrown into 
prison in Washington for* a vain effort to escape. They 
Avere, many of them, partially educated, cultivated young 
men and women, to whom slavery was intolerable. When 
they were retaken and marched through the streets of 
Washington, followed by a jeering crowd, one of them, 
named Emily Edmonson, answered one man who cried 
shame upon her, that she was not ashamed, — that she 
was proud that she and all the rest of them had made an 
effort for liberty ! It was the sentiment of a heroine, but 
she and her sisters were condemned no less to the auction- 
block. 

" ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was published March 20, 1852. 
The despondency of the author as to the question whether 
anybody would read or attend to her appeal was soon dis- 
pelled. Ten thousand copies were sold in a few days, and 
over three hundred thousand within a year, and eight 
power-presses, running day and night, were barely able to 
keep pace with the demand for it. It was read every- 
where, apparently, and by everybody, and she soon began 
to hear echoes of sympathy all over the land. The indig- 
nation, the pity, the distress, that had long weighed upon 
her soul seemed to pass off from her, and into the readers 
of the book. 

"The following note from a lady, an intimate friend, was 
a specimen of many which the post daily brought her : — 

" ' My dear Mrs. Stowe, — I sat up last night until 
long after one o'clock, reading and finishing " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." I could not leave it any more than I could have 



150 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

left a dying child ; nor could I restrain an almost hysterical 
sobbing for an hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. 
I thought I was a thoroughgoing abolitionist before, but 
your book has awakened so strong a feeling of indignation 
and of compassion, that I seem never to have had any 
feeling on this subject till now. But what can we do? 
Alas ! alas ! what can we do % This storm of feeling has 
been raging, burning like a very fire in my bones all the 
livelong night, and through all my duties this morning it 
haunts me, — I cannot away with it. Gladly would I 
have gone out in the midnight storm last night, and, like 
the blessed martyr of old, been stoned to death, if that 
could have rescued these oppressed and afflicted ones. But 
that would avail nothing. And now what am I doing? 
Just the most foolish thing in the world. Writing to you, 
who need no incitement; to you, who have spun from 
your very vitals this tissue of agony and truths; for I 
know, I feel, that there are burning drops of your heart's 
best blood here concentrated. To ?/om, who need no en- 
couragement or sympathy of mine, and whom I would not 
insult by praise, — oh, no, you stand on too high an emi- 
nence for praise ; but methinks I see the prayers of the 
poor, the blessings of those who are ready to perish, gath- 
ering in clouds about you, and forming a halo round your 
beloved head. And surely the tears of gentle, sympathiz- 
ing childhood, that are dropping about many a Christian 
hearthstone over the wrongs and cruelties depicted by you 
so touchingly, will water the sod and spring up in bright 
flowers at your feet. And better still, I know, — I see, 
in the flushing cheek, the clenched hand and indignant 
eye of the young man, as he dashes doAvn the book and 
paces the room to hide the tears that he is too proud to 
show, too powerless to restrain, that you are sowing seed 
which shall yet spring up to the glory of God, to the good 
of the poor slave, to the enfranchisement of our beloved 
though guilty covmtry.' 



1853] GEORGE SAND'S REVIEW OF UNCLE TOM 151 

" In one respect, Mrs. Stowe's expectations were strikingly- 
different from fact. She had painted slaveholders as ami- 
able, generous, and just. She had shown examples among 
them of the noblest and most beautiful traits of character ; 
had admitted fully their temptations, their perplexities, 
and their difficulties, so that a friend of hers who had 
many relatives in the South wrote to her in exultation : 
' Your book is going to be the great paciiicator ; it will 
unite both North and South.' Her expectation was that 
the professed abolitionists would denounce it as altogether 
too mild in its dealings with slaveholders. To her aston- 
ishment it was the extreme abolitionists who received, and 
the entire South who rose up against it. 

" The most valuable of the letters referred to were from 
Lord Carlisle, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, the Earl of 
Shaftesbury, Archbishop Whately, Hon. Arthur Helps, 
Frederika Bremer, and George Sand. The latter thus in- 
troduced 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' to the literary world of 
France : — 

To review a book, the very morrow after its appearance, 
in the very journal where it has just been published, is 
doubtless contrary to usage, but in this case it is the most 
disinterested homage that can be rendered, since the im- 
mense success attained by this work at its publication does 
not need to be set forth. 

This book is in all hands and in all journals. It has, 
and will have, editions in every form; people devour it, 
they cover it with tears. It is no longer permissible to 
those who can read not to have read it, and one mourns 
that there are so many souls condemned never to read it, 
— helots of poverty, slaves through ignorance, for whom 
society has been unable as yet to solve the double problem 
of uniting the food of the body with the food of the soul. 

It is not, then, it cannot be, an officious and needless 



152 HAEEIET BEECHEK STOWE [1863 

task to review this book of Mrs. Stowe. We repeat, it is 
a homage, and never did a generous and pure work merit 
one more tender and spontaneous. She is far from us; 
we do not know her who has penetrated our hearts with 
emotions so sad and yet so sweet. Let us thank her the 
more. Let the gentle voice of woman, the generous voice 
of man, with the voices of little children, so adorably glori- 
fied in this book, and those of the oppressed of this old 
world, let them cross the seas and hasten to say to her 
that she is esteemed and beloved! 

If the best eulogy which one can make of the author is 
to love her, the truest that one can make of the book is to 
love its very faults. It has faults, — we need not pass 
them in silence, we need not evade the discussion of them, 
— but you need not be disturbed about them, you who are 
rallied on the tears you have shed over the fortunes of the 
poor victims in a narrative so simple and true. 

These defects exist only in relation to the conventional 
rules of art, which never have been and never will be ab- 
solute. If its judges, possessed with the love of what 
they call "artistic work," find unskillful treatment in the 
book, look well at them to see if their eyes are dry when 
they are reading this or that chapter. 

They will recall to your mind that Ohio senator, who, 
having sagely demonstrated to his little wife that it is a 
political duty to refuse asylum and help to the fugitive 
slave, ends by taking two in his own carriage, in a dark 
night, over fearful roads, where he must from time to time 
plunge into mud to his waist to push on the vehicle. This 
charming episode in "Uncle Tom" (a digression, if you 
will) paints well the situation of most men placed between 
their prejudices and established modes of thought and the 
spontaneous and generotis intuitions of their hearts. 

It is the history, at the same time affecting and pleasing, 
of many independent critics. Whatever they may be in 



1853] GEORGE SAND'S CRITICISM 153 

the matter of social or literary questions, those who pretend 
always to judge by strict rules are often vanquished by 
their own feelings, and sometimes vanquished when un- 
willing to avow it. 

I have always been charmed by the anecdote of Voltaire, 
ridiculing and despising the fables of La Fontaine, seizing 
the book and saying, "Look here, now, you will see in 
the very first one " — he reads one. " Well, that is passa- 
ble, but see how stupid this is ! " — he reads a second, and 
finds after all that it is quite pretty ; a third disarms him 
again, and at last he throws down the volume, saying, with 
ingenuous spite, "It's nothing but a collection of master- 
pieces." Great souls may be bilious and vindictive, but 
it is impossible for them to remain unjust and insensible. 

It, however, should be said to people of culture, who 
profess to be able to give correct judgments, that if their 
culture is of the truest kind it will never resist a just and 
right emotion. Therefore it is that this book, defective 
according to the rules of the modern French romance, in- 
tensely interests everybody and triumphs over all criticisms 
in the discussions it causes in domestic circles. 

For this book is essentially domestic and of the family, 
— this book, with its long discussions, its minute details, 
its portraits carefullj'- studied. Mothers of families, young 
girls, little children, servants even, can read and understand 
them, and men themselves, even the most superior, cannot 
disdain them. We do not say that the success of the book 
is because its great merits redeem its faults ; we say its suc- 
cess is because of these very alleged faults. 

For a long time we have striven in France against the 
prolix explanations of Walter Scott. We have cried out 
against those of Balzac, but on consideration have perceived 
that the painter of manners and character has never done 
too much, that every stroke of the pencil was needed for 
the general effect. Let us learn then to appreciate all 



154 HAKRIET BEECHEE STOWE [1853 

kinds of treatment, when the effect is good, and when 
they bear the seal of a master hand. 

Mrs. Stowe is all instinct; it is the very reason that she 
appears to some not to have talent. Has she not talent? 
"What is talent? Nothing, doubtless, compared to genius; 
but has she genius? I cannot say that she has talent as 
one understands it in the world of letters, but she has 
genius, as humanity feels the need of genius, — the genius 
of goodness, not that of the man of letters, but of the 
saint. Yes, — a saint! Thrice holy the soul which thus 
loves, blesses, and consoles the martyrs. Pure, penetra- 
ting, and profound the spirit which thus fathoms the re- 
cesses of the human soul. Noble, generous, and great the 
heart which embraces in her pity, in her love, an entire 
race, trodden down in blood and mire under the whip of 
ruffians and the maledictions of the impious. 

Thiis should it be, thus should we value things our- 
selves. We should feel that genius is heart, that power is 
faith, that talent is sincerity, and, finally, success is sym- 
pathy, since this book overcomes us, since it penetrates the 
breast, pervades the spirit, and fills us with a strange senti- 
ment of mingled tenderness and admiration for a poor negro 
lacerated by blows, prostrate in the dust, there gasping on 
a miserable pallet, his last sigh exhaled towards God. 

In matters of art there is but one rule, to paint and to 
move. And where shall we find creations more complete, 
types more vivid, situations more touching, more original, 
than in "Uncle Tom," — those beautiful relations of the 
slave with the child of his master, indicating a state of 
things unknown among us; the protest of the master him- 
self against slavery during that innocent part of life when 
his soi;l belongs to God alone ? Afterwards, when society 
takes him, the law chases away God, and interest deposes 
conscience. In coming to mature years the infant ceases 
to be Tuian and becomes master. God dies in his soul. 



1853] EVA AND UNCLE TOM 155 

What hand has ever drawn a type more fascinating and 
admirable than St. Clair, — this exceptional nature, noble, 
generous, and loving, but too soft and too nonchalant to 
be really great? Is it not man himself, human nature 
itself, with its innate virtues, its good aspirations, and its 
deplorable failures 1 — this charming master who loves and 
is beloved, who thinks and reasons, but concludes nothing 
and does nothing! He spends in his day treasures of in- 
dulgence, of consideration, of goodness; he dies without 
having accomplished anything. The story of his precious 
life is all told in a word, — "to aspire and to regret." He 
has never learned to will. Alas ! is there not something 
of this even among the bravest and best of men? 

The life and death of a little child and of a negro slave! 
— that is the whole book ! This negro and this child are 
two saints of heaven! The affection that unites them, the 
respect of these two perfect ones for each other, is the only 
love-story, the only passion of the drama. I know not 
what other genius but that of sanctity itself could shed over 
this affection and this situation a charm so powerful and 
so sustained. The child reading the Bible on the knees 
of the slave, dreaming over its mysteries and enjoying 
them in her exceptional maturity; now covering him Avith 
flowers like a doll, and now looking to him as something 
sacred, passing from tender playfulness to tender venera- 
tion, and then fading away through a mysterious malady 
which seems to be nothing but the wearing of pity in a 
nature too pure, too divine, to accept earthly law; dying 
finally in the arms of the slave, and calling him after her 
to the bosom of God, — all this is so new, so beautiful, 
that one asks one's self in thinking of it whether the suc- 
cess which has attended the work is after all equal to the 
height of the conception. 

Children are the true heroes of Mrs. Stowe's works. 
Her soul, the most motherly that could be, has conceived 



156 HAKRIET BEECHEE STOWE [1853 

of these little creatures in a halo of grace. George Shelby, 
the little Harry, the cousin of Eva, the regretted babe of 
the little wife of the Senator, and Topsy, the poor, diabolic, 
excellent Topsy, — all the children that one sees, and even 
those that one does not see in this romance, but of whom 
one has only a few words from their desolate mothers, seem 
to us a world of little angels, white and black, where any 
mother may recognize some darling of her own, source of 
her joys and tears. In taking form in the spirit of Mrs. 
Stowe, these children, without ceasing to be children, as- 
sume ideal graces, and come at last to interest us more 
than the personages of an ordinary love-story. 

Women, too, are here judged and painted with a master 
hand; not merely mothers who are sublime, but women 
who are not mothers either in heart or in fact, and whose 
infirmities are treated with indulgence or with rigor. By 
the side of the methodical Miss Ophelia, who ends by 
learning that duty is good for nothing without love, Marie 
St. Clair is a frightfully truthful portrait. One shudders 
in thinking that she exists, that she is everywhere, that 
each of us has met her and seen her, perhaps, not far from 
us, for it is only necessary that this charming creature 
should have slaves to torture, and we should see her re- 
vealed complete through her vapors and her nervous com- 
plaints. 

The saints also have their claw! it is that of the lion. 
She buries it deep in the conscience, and a little of burn- 
ing indignation and of terrible sarcasm does not, after all, 
misbecome this Harriet Stowe, this woman so gentle, so 
humane, so religious, and full of evangelical unction. Ah ! 
yes, she is a very good woman, but not what we derisively 
call "goody good." Hers is a heart strong and courageous, 
which in blessing the unhappy and applauding the faith- 
ful, tending the feeble and succoring the irresolute, does 
not hesitate to bind to the pillory the hardened tyrant, to 
show to the world his deformity. 



1853] RECEPTION OF UNCLE TOM IN PARIS 157 

She is, in the true spirit of the word, consecrated. Her 
fervent Christianity sings the praise of the martyr, but 
permits no man the right to perpetuate the wrong. She 
denounces that strange perversion of Scripture which toler- 
ates the iniquity of the oppressor because it gives oppor- 
tunity for the virtues of the victims. She calls on God 
himself, and threatens in his name; she shows us hi;man 
law on one side, and God on the other! 

Let no one say that, because she exhorts to patient en- 
durance of wrong, she justifies those who do the wrong. 
Read the beautiful page where George Harris, the white 
slave, embraces for the first time the shores of a free terri- 
tory, and presses to his heart wife and child, who at last 
are his own. What a beautiful picture, that! What a 
large heart-throb ! what a triumphant protest of the eternal 
and inalienable right of man to liberty ! 

Honor and respect to you, Mrs. Stowe ! Some day your 
recompense, which is already recorded in heaven, will come 
also in this world. George Sand. 

NoHANT, December 17, 1852. 

" Madame L. S. Belloc, also a well-known and distin- 
guished writer, the translator of Miss Edgeworth's and of 
other English works into French, says : — 

" ' When the first translation of " Uncle Tom " was pub- 
lished in Paris there was a general hallelujah for the author 
and for the cause. A few weeks after, M. Charpentier, 
one of our best publishers, called on me to ask a new 
translation. I objected that there were already so many it 
might prove a failure. He insisted, saying, " II n'y aura 
jamais assez de lecteurs pour un tel livre," and he particu- 
larly desired a special translation for his own collection, 
" Bibliotheque Charpentier," where it is catalogued, and 
where it continues now to sell daily. " La Case de I'Oncle 
Tom " was the fifth, if I recollect rightly, and a sixth illus- 



158 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

trated edition appeared some months after. It was read 
by high and low, by grown persons and children, A great 
enthusiasm for the anti-slavery cause was the result. The 
popularity of the work in France was immense, and no 
doubt influenced the public mind in favor of the North 
during the war of secession.' 

" The next step in the history of ' Uncle Tom ' was a 
meeting at Stafford House, when Lord Shaftesbury recom- 
mended to the women of England the sending of an ' affec- 
tionate and Christian address to the women of America.' 

" This address, composed by Lord Shaftesbury, was taken 
in hand for signatures by energetic canvassers in all parts 
of England, and also among resident English on the Con- 
tinent. The demand for signatures went as far forth as 
the city of Jerusalem. When all the signatures were col- 
lected, the document was forwarded to the care of Mrs. 
Stowe in America, with a letter from Lord Carlisle, re- 
commending it to her, to be presented to the ladies of 
America in such way as she should see fit. 

" It was exhibited first at the Boston anti-slavery fair, 
and now remains in its solid oak case, a lasting monument 
of the feeling called forth by ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' 

"It is in twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound in 
morocco, with the American eagle on the back of each. 
On the first page of the first volume is the address beauti- 
fully illuminated on vellum, and following are the subscrib- 
ers' names, filling the volumes. There are 562,448 names 
of women of every rank of life, from the nearest in rank 
to the throne of England to the wives and daughters of 
the humblest artisan and laborer. Among all who signed 
it is fair to presume there was not one who had not read 
the book, and did not, at the time of signing, feel a sym- 
pathy for the cause of the oppressed people whose wrongs 
formed its subject. The address, with its many signatures, 
was simply a relief to that impulsive desire to do some- 



1853] RECEPTION OF MRS. STOWE IN ENGLAND 159 

thing for the cause of the slave, which the reading of 
' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' appeared to inspire. 

'' Of the wisdom of this step there have been many opin- 
ions. Nobody, however, can doubt that Lord Shaftesbury, 
who had spent a long life in labors to lift burdens from 
the working-classes of England, and who had redeemed 
from slavery and degradation English women and children 
in its mines and collieries, had thereby acquired a certain 
right to plead for the cause of oppressed working-classes in 
all countries. 

" The address was received as a welcome word of cheer 
and encouragement by that small band of faithful workers 
who for years had stood in an unfashionable minority ; but 
so far as the feeling expressed in it was one of real Chris- 
tian kindliness and humility, it was like a flower thrown 
into the white heat of a furnace. It added intensity, if that 
were possible, to that terrific conflict of forces which was 
destined never to cease till slavery was finally abolished. 

" It was a year after the publication of ' Uncle Tom ' 
that Mrs. Stowe visited England, and was received at Staf- 
ford House, there meeting all the best known and best 
worth knowing of the higher circles of England. 

" A series of addresses presented to Mrs. Stowe at this 
time by public meetings in different towns of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, still remain among the literary 
curiosities relating to this book. The titles of these are 
somewhat curious : ' Address from the Inhabitants of 
Berwick-upon-Tweed ; ' ' Address from the Inhabitants of 
Dalkeith ; ' ' Address from the Committee of the Glasgow 
Female Anti-Slavery Society ; ' ' Address from the Glas- 
gow University Abstainers' Society ; ' ' Address from a 
Public Meeting in Belfast, Ireland ; ' ' Address from the 
Committee of the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, Edinburgh ; ' 
' Address from the City of Leeds.' 



160 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

" All these public meetings, addresses, and demonstrations 
of sympathy were, in their time and way, doubtless of per- 
fect sincerity. But when the United States went into a 
state of civil war, these demonstrations ceased. 

" But it is due to the brave true working-classes of Eng- 
land to say that in this conflict, whenever they thought 
the war was one of justice to the slave, they gave it their 
sympathy, and even when it brought hardship and want to 
their very doors, refused to lend themselves to any popu- 
lar movement which would go to crusht he oppressed in 
America. 

" It is but justice also to the Duchess of Sutherland to 
say that although by the time our war was initiated she had 
retired from her place as leader of society to the chamber 
of the invalid, yet her sympathies expressed in private 
letters ever remained true to the cause of freedom. 

" Her son-in-law, the Duke of Argyll, stood almost alone 
in the House of Lords in defending the cause of the North- 
ern States. It is, moreover, a significant fact that the 
Queen of England, in concurrence with Prince Albert, 
steadily resisted every attempt to enlist the warlike power 
of England against the Northern States. 

"But Almighty God had decreed the liberation of the 
African race, and though Presidents, Senators, and Repre- 
sentatives united in declaring that such were not their in- 
tentions, yet by great signs and mighty wonders was this 
nation compelled to listen to the voice that spoke from 
heaven, — ' Let my people go.' 

" ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' in the fervor which conceived it, 
in the feeling which it inspired through the Avorld, was 
only one of a line of ripples marking the commencement of 
mighty rapids, moving by forces which no human power 
could stay to an irresistible termination, — towards human 
freedom. 

"Now the war is over, slavery is a thing of the past; 



1853] END OF MKS. STOWE'S HISTORY OF HER BOOK 161 

slave-pens, blood-hounds, slave-whips, and slave-coffles are 
only bad dreams of the night; and no-w the humane reader 
can aiford to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' without an ex- 
penditure of torture and tears." 

Nothing need be added to this story respecting the 
growth, development, and reception of "Uncle Tom." 

It only remains for us to follow her, now suddenly launched 
upon an ocean of new experiences; experiences such as are 
known in this world to the few men and women whose 
sympathies have led them to give their lives indeed for 
others. We look back upon the dreaming child, we fol- 
low the eager girl, unconscious of incessant labor, conscious 
only of aspiration and endeavor ; we watch the tender 
mother; and then we see her, forever the same, a tiny 
figure standing forgetful of herself against the dark vast 
background of her country's life. 



CHAPTER VI 

KEY TO UNCLE TOM's CABIN AND FIRST VISIT TO 
ENGLAND 

In the autumn of the same year that " Uncle Tom " 
was published, Mrs. Stowe returned to Brooklyn, where 
she cemented her friendship with her brother's parish- 
ioner, Mrs. John T. Howard. Mr. Howard was one 
of the earliest promoters of Plymouth Church, and from 
their first acquaintance to the end of his life Mr. and 
Mrs. Howard and their children were Mr. Beecher's un- 
wavering supporters and faithful friends. By this time 
Mrs. Stowe 's foreign correspondence had increased. The 
letters exchanged across the water were the beginning of 
some of her most valued friendships. Her brother Henry 
said, many years after leaving Indianapolis for Brooklyn: 
" I have no opportunity to tell my friends there how dearly 
I love them, but pearls and diamonds do not change when 
laid away in a bag, neither do such friendships. " It was 
the same with Mrs. Stowe. Her genius for friendship was 
only another phase of her intimate life which the world 
could not see. Her love once given was not subject to any 
"wind of doctrine." Days, weeks, and months could pass 
without communication, but her heart was always remem- 
bering and alive. 

Mrs. Howard has written a delightful account of the 
beginning of her lifelong intimacy with Mrs. Stowe. 

"The newspapers were then filled with accounts of the 
wonderful success of the book at home and abroad," writes 
Mrs. Howard. "When ready to return to her home in 



1852] MANNER OF CONCEIVING UNCLE TOM 163 

Andover, she urged my going with her, an invitation that 
I gladly accepted. To lessen the fatigue of the long rail- 
road journe}^, we spent one night in Hartford with Mrs. 
Stowe's sister, Mrs. Perkins. After a pleasant evening 
with the family, we retired, sharing the same room at Mrs. 
Stowe's request. I soon disrobed and lay upon the bed, 
looking at her little childish figure gathered in a heap upon 
the floor as she sat brushing out her long curls with a 
thoughtful look upon her face, which I did not disturb by 
words. 

" At last she spoke, and said, ' I have just received a 
letter from my brother Edward from Galesburg, Illinois. 
He is greatly disturbed lest all this praise and notoriety 
should induce pride and vanity, and work harm to my 
Christian character.' She dropped her brush from her 
hand and exclaimed with earnestness, ' Dear soul, he need 
not be troubled. He does n't know that I did not write 
that book,' ' What / ' said I, * you did not write "Uncle 
Tom " ? ' ' No, ' she said, ' I only put down what I saw. ' 
' But you have never been at the South, have you ? ' 
I asked. ' No, ' she said, ' but it all came before me in 
visions, one after another, and I put them down in words.' 
But being still skeptical, I said, ' Still you must have 
arranged the events. ' ' No, ' said she, ' your Annie re- 
proached me for letting Eva die. Why! I could not 
help it. I felt as badly as any one could ! It was like a 
death in my own family, and it affected me so deeply that 
I could not write a word for two weeks after her death. ' 
' And did you know, ' I asked, * that Uncle Tom would 
die?' ' Oh yes,' she answered, *I knew that he must die 
from the first, but I did not know how. When I got to 
that part of the story, I saw no more for some time. I 
was physically exhausted, too. Mr. Stowe had then ac- 
cepted a call to Andover, and had to go there to find a 
house for the family. 



164 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1852 

" ' He urged my going with him for the change, and I 
went. No available home could be found, and the Faculty 
gave us permission to occupy a large stone building which 
had been built for a gymnasium. I had always longed to 
plan a house for myself, and we entered into the work 
with great interest. We consulted an architect, and had 
been with him arranging the plan for rooms, pantries, and 
other household conveniences, all the morning. 

" ' I was very tired when we returned to our boarding- 
house to the early midday dinner. After dinner we went 
to our room for rest. Mr. Stowe threw himself upon the 
bed; I was to use the lounge; but suddenly arose before 
me the death scene of Uncle Tom with what led to it — 
and George's visit to him. I sat down at the table and 
wrote nine pages of foolscap paper without pausing, except 
long enough to dip my pen into the inkstand. Just as I 
had finished, Mr. Stowe awoke. "Wife," said he, "have 
not you lain down yet?" "No," I answered. "I have 
been writing, and I want you to listen to this, and see if 
it will do." I read aloud to him with the tears flowing 
fast. He wept, too, and before I had finished, his sobs 
shook the bed upon which he was lying. He sprang up, 
saying, "Do! I should think it would do!" and folding 
the sheets he immediately directed and sent them to the 
publisher, without one word of correction or revision of 
any kind. I have often thought,' she continued, 'that if 
anything had happened to that package in going, it would 
not have been possible for me to have reproduced it. ' 

"As I lay there and listened to this wonderful account, 
how could I help believing that God inspires his children, 
and that mighty works do still show forth themselves in 
those who are prepared to be his mediums. If I had only 
possessed the limner's power, how gladly would I have 
put upon canvas that face, lit with a light divine, as 
though remembering those angel visits, and still saying. 



1852] DISCREPANCY IN THE HISTORY 165 

' Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be unto me 
as Thou wilt. ' 

"Many years after this occurrence," continues Mrs. 
Howard, "a new edition of ' Uncle Tom ' was brought out 
by her publishers. In the preface was a paper by Mrs. 
Stowe, giving an account of the writing of the book. In 
this account she speaks of having many years before 
written a sketch of the death of an old slave, and of her 
reading it to her children, who were very much affected 
by it, this being the original idea (in part) of 'Uncle Tom.' 
The next time I saw her I spoke of it, and reminded her 
of what she had told me just after ' Uncle Tom ' was pub- 
lished. There seemed to me a serious inconsistency be- 
tween the two accounts. ' No, ' said she, ' both are true, for 
I had entirely forgotten that I had ever written that sketch, 
and I suppose that I had unconsciously woven it in with 
the other. ' " 

There is still another discrepancy in this narration. 
Professor Stowe did not accept the appointment to An- 
dover until after the publication of "Uncle Tom," A 
letter from his wife in Boston, while he is still in Bruns- 
wick at his post, considers the subject of acceptance, and 
puts before him what Professor Park has to say on the 
subject. They did not go to the boarding-house, it appears, 
until the summer, when " Uncle Tom " had been published 
three or four months. There is a letter from the Commit- 
tee of Trustees written in June of this year suggesting the 
"old stone house " as a possible resort if they feel inclined 
to fit it up. Therefore the subject had not been considered 
before " Uncle Tom " was printed, and Mrs. Stowe must 
have written the chapter as described after a busy day 
either in Brunswick or in Boston. It is true that neither of 
these slips disturbs in the least the true value of the story. 
The work which she was to do lay upon her heart, and the 
first available instant, even one which seemed necessary 



166 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

for repose, was seized upon and dedicated to this service. 
The almost incredible swiftness of the writing proves the 
rapt condition of her mind. Surely it is not wonderful 
that some of the details of the occasion were forgotten. 

Mrs. Howard was a generous intermediary between 
Henry Ward Beecher and his sister. Harriet was always 
anxious to know how it was with her brother, and he 
found little time for correspondence. His daring in those 
exciting days laid him open to the attacks of the enemy. 

"Has the pressure really affected Henry's health? " Mrs. 
Stowe writes. " I have been so sheltered and hemmed in 
in my retirement that I have not read the articles in the 
' Observer. ' ... I am reminded of one of Aunt Es- 
ther's stories. A man, when very drunk, had the habit 
of using very abusive language to his wife, to which she 
paid no attention, but went about her affairs as usual. At 
last he fell to praying about her, saying all manner of 
horrid things against her in his prayers. Still she gave no 
heed. 

" ' Why, do you hear, ' said a neighbor, ' how that man 
goes on ? ' 

" ' Oh, poll ! ' said his wife, ' he '11 get over it by and 

by.' 

" ' But do just hear him praying. ' 
" ' Oh, let him pray, nobody minds his prayers. ' 
" So it has struck me that both the secular and the pious 
abuse of the ' Observer ' are equally unworthy of atten- 
tion. All we have to do is to live on.^^ 

The year following the publication of "Uncle Tom" 
was a very hard one. Mrs. Stowe was necessarily much 
away from home. Her visits at Brooklyn, which were a 
necessity after her writing was done, were followed by the 
news that Professor Stowe had accepted the call received 
from the Andover Theological Seminary to become Professor 
of Sacred Literature there. She was disinclined to leave 



1853] ANDOVER 167 

Brunswick, where she found herself surrounded with loving 
friends from the moment of her arrival, but she wrote : 
" For my part, if I Tnust leave Brunswick I would rather 
leave at once. I can tear away with a sudden pull more 
easily than to linger there knowing that I am to leave at 
last. I shall never find people whom I shall like better 
than those of Brunswick." 

Again Professor Stowe was called away to Cincinnati, 
and again his wife set herself to the task of making a new 
home. The house decided upon for their abode in An- 
dover was known at this time as the old stone work-shop, 
but it was soon transformed by her care and ingenuity into 
a pleasant residence, and called "The Stone Cabin." I can 
well remember the cosy aspect of the house in winter, the 
windows full of flowering plants, and a general air of com- 
fort pervading it. Here many interesting persons, drawn 
by her great fame, came to visit her, and here she con- 
tinued her public and private labors. During the first 
summer, before the house was ready, she wrote to her hus- 
band : — 

"What a beautiful place it is! There is everything 
here that there is at Brunswick except the sea, — a great 
exception. Yesterday I was out all the forenoon sketch- 
ing elms. There is no end to the beauty of these trees. 
I shall fill my book with them before I get through. We 
had a levee at Professor Park's last week, — quite a bril- 
liant affair. To-day there is to be a fishing party to go 
to Salem beach and have a chowder. 

" It seems almost too good to be true that we are going 
to have such a house in such a beautiful place, and to 
live here among all these agreeable people, where every- 
body seems to love you so much and to think so much of 
you. I am almost afraid to accept it, and should not, did 
I not see the Hand that gives it all and know that it is 
both firm and true. He knows if it is best for us, and 



168 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

his blessing addeth no sorrow therewith. I cannot de- 
scribe to you the constant undercurrent of love and joy 
and peace ever flowing through my soul. I am so happy 
— so blessed ! " 

And again : — 

"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there 
is my Maine story waiting. However, I am composing it 
every day, only I greatly need living studies for the filling 
in of my sketches. There is ' old Jonas, ' my ' fish father, ' 
a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who in his youth 
sailed all over the world and made up his mind about 
everything. In his old age he attends prayer-meetings 
and reads the ' Missionary Herald. ' He also has plenty 
of money in an old brown sea-chest. He is a great heart 
with an inflexible will and iron muscles. I must go to 
Orr's Island and see him again. I am now writing an 
article for the ' Era ' on Maine and its scenery, which I 
think is even better than the ' Independent ' letter. In it 
I took up Longfellow. Next I shall write one on Haw- 
thorne and his surroundings. 

"To-day Mr. Jewett sent out a most solemnly savage 
attack upon me from the ' Alabama Planter. ' Among 
other things it says: ' The plan for assaulting the best in- 
stitutions in the world may be made just as rational as it 
is by the wicked (perhaps unconsciously so) authoress of 
this book. The woman who wrote it must be either a 
very bad or a very fanatical person. For her own domes- 
tic peace we trust no enemy will ever penetrate into her 
household to pervert the scenes he may find there with as 
little logic or kindness as she has used in her " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin. " ' There 's for you ! " 

Her absence from home and children for the long time 
required to go to Andover and start things afresh there 
filled her mind with cares and anxieties. 

She wrote to her husband : — 



1853] ATTACKS AND ANXIETIES 169 

"A day or two ago, my mind lay clear as glass, and I 
thought I had no will but God's, and could have none. 
Lo! his hand touches a spring, and I see what poor trash 
I am. But I am his chosen one for all that, and I shall 
reign with Him when all the stars have done blossoming, 
and if I am so poor I am betrothed to One who is Heir of 
all things. I read Chaucer a great deal yesterday, and am 
charmed at the reverential Christian spirit in which he 
viewed all things. He thought of marriage as * a most 
dread sacrament,' just as I do; and surely, if our catechism 
says truly, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of 
an inward and spiritual grace." 

Professor Stowe was often greatly agitated by the diffi- 
culties which surrounded them. At such times, no matter 
what her occupation was, she would drop everything to 
write and try to soothe him. The large square sheets of 
old-fashioned paper covered with her fine script would 
make many a book beside those which belong to the public. 
In one of these letters, she says : — 

"I grieve to see how much you suffer; but God, I am 
persuaded, has better things in store for you. I trust you 
will be of good cheer." 

One would hardly guess that it was she who was bearing 
the burden of the family to such an extent if she did not 
occasionally recount the details, in order, as it appears, to 
divert his mind from the painful channels of his own de- 
spair. The attacks made upon his wife after the publica- 
tion of "Uncle Tom" oppressed him. "For myself," she 
said, "I have not an anxiety, but am only vulnerable 
through you. That you should be exposed to this annoy- 
ance on my account is the real and only trouble I have 

had. For me, what harm can or anybody else do 

to me ? * Who is he that can harm you if ye be followers 
of that which is good ? ' In this belief I have tried to 
keep near to Him who only is good. . . . Let me recom- 



170 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1855 

mend to you what my good mother Edmondson says has 
been her relief : ' Oh, many a time, ' she says, ' my heart 
has been so heavy — and I 've been to the throne of Grace 
and when I 've povired out my sorrows to the Lord, I 've 
come away and felt that / can live a little longer. ' 

"So God lays on you a heavy burden in the internal 
structure of your mind; but how blessed is this baptism of 
sorrow. Would you part with what you have gained by 
your peculiar svifFering ? I can see that you have acquired 
by it much that gives you power over other minds. There 
is not one sorrow that I have had that I Avould part with, 
— nay, I bear with joy all that falls on my heart from day 
to day. I say ' Welcome, cross of Christ ! ' " 

Mr, J. E. Howard says that his father was making a brief 
visit to Mrs. Stowe at this period, when "one afternoon 
she told him that she often arose in the morning at half 
past four and went out to enjoy the birds and the dawn, 
and she challenged him to join her. The next morning 
they went out, and in that rare, sweet atmosphere they 
talked, and were silent, together. And she read to him 
some verses which she had written at such an hour. Since 
then they have been read and sung by many, to whom 
they have brought the very peace of Christ." I give the 
first stanza of the well-known beautiful hymn : — 

"Still, still with Thee when purple morning breaketh, 
When the bird waketh and the shadows flee ; 
Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daj'light, 
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with thee! " 

Even in the heat and hurry of that time the "central 
peace " of which Wordsworth speaks was ever at her heart. 

The Maine story to which Mrs. Stowe has already re- 
ferred was begun before she left Brunswick, but she was 
obliged to lay it aside on account of the numberless at- 
tacks made upon "Uncle Tom," which must finally be 
answered. Unhappily the beautiful beginning of "The 



1853] KEY TO UNCLE TOM 171 

Pearl of Orr's Island," one of her best pieces of writing, 
was never followed out in the same vein. 

Mrs. Stowe had scarcely set herself to the task of writing 
what she calls "A key to unlock 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' " 
when she discovered it to be a far greater labor than she 
anticipated. She had spoken, in writing to Mrs. Howard, 
of an additional twenty-five pages which she was to add 
to the next edition of "Uncle Tom," but she soon found 
herself launched upon a work which was to occupy her for 
many months and make an entirely new book. 

Late in the winter, she wrote to her husband : — 

"I am now very much driven. I am preparing a Key 
to unlock 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' It will contain all the 
original facts, anecdotes, and documents on which the 
story is founded, with some very interesting and affecting 
stories parallel to those told of Uncle Tom. Now I want 
you to write for me just what you heard that slave-buyer 
say, exactly as he said it, that people may compare it with 
what I have written. My Key will be stronger than the 
Cabin." 

In regard to this "Key" Mrs. Stowe also wrote to the 
Duchess of Sutherland vipon hearing that she had headed an 
address from the women of England to those of America : — 

It is made up of the facts, the documents, the things 
which my own eyes have looked upon and my hands have 
handled, that attest this awful indictment upon my coun- 
try. I write it in the anguish of my soul, with tears and 
prayer, with sleepless nights and weary days. I bear my 
testimony with a heavy heart, as one who in court is 
forced by an awful oath to disclose the sins of those dear- 
est. 

So I am called to draw up this fearful witness against 
my country and send it into all countries, that the general 
voice of humanity may quicken our paralyzed vitality, that 



172 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

all Christians may pray for us, and that shame, honor, love 
of country, and love of Christ may be roused to give us 
strength to cast out this mighty evil. Yours for the op- 
pressed, H. B. Stowe. 

She continued the exhausting labor of preparing this 
book until the spring, when an invitation came from the 
friends of emancipation in England urging her to come 
over to them. It was a great opportunity which Profes- 
sor Stowe and his wife accepted gladly. Meanwhile a 
letter had been received from Mrs. Follen, who was then 
in London, asking for information about the writer of 
"Uncle Tom." Mrs. Stowe replied: — 

Andovek, February 16. 

My dear Madam, — I hasten to reply to your letter, 
to me the more interesting that I have long been acquainted 
with you, and during all the nursery part of my life made 
daily use of your poems for children. 

I used to think sometimes in those days that I would 
write to you, and tell you how much I was obliged to you 
for the pleasure which they gave us all. 

So you want to know something about what sort of a 
woman I am! Well, if this is any object, you shall have 
statistics free of charge. To begin, then, I am a little bit 
of a woman, — somewhat more than forty, about as thin 
and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at in 
my best days, and looking like a used-up article now. 

I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a 
man rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and, 
alas ! rich in nothing else. When I went to housekeeping, 
my entire stock of china for parlor and kitchen was bought 
for eleven dollars. That lasted very well for two years, 
till my brother was married and brought his bride to visit 
me. I then found, on review, that I had neither plates 



1853] LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN 173 

nor teacups to set a table for my father's family; where- 
fore I thought it best to reinforce the establishment by 
getting me a tea-set that cost ten dollars more, and this, I 
believe, formed my whole stock in trade for some years. 

But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of 
another sort. 

I had two little curly-headed twin daughters to begin 
with, and my stock in this line has gradually increased, 
till I have been the mother of seven children, the most 
beautiful and the most loved of whom lies buried near my 
Cincinnati residence. It was at his dying bed and at his 
grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel 
when her child is torn away from her. In those depths 
of sorrow which seemed to me immeasurable, it was my 
only prayer to God that such anguish might not be suffered 
in vain. There were circumstances about his death of 
such peculiar bitterness, of what seemed almost cruel suf- 
fering, that I felt that I could never be consoled for it 
unless this crushing of my own heart might enable me to 
work out some great good to others. . . . 

I allude to this here because I have often felt that 
much that is in that book (" Uncle Tom ") had its root in 
the awful scenes and bitter sorrows of that summer. It 
has left now, I trust, no trace on my mind except a deep 
compassion for the sorrowful, especially for mothers who 
are separated from their children. 

During long years of struggling with poverty and sick- 
ness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children grew up 
around me. The nursery and the kitchen were my prin- 
cipal fields of labor. Some of my friends, pitying my 
trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches from my 
pen to certain liberally paying " Annuals " with my name. 
With the first money that I earned in this way I bought 
a feather-bed ! for as I had married into poverty and with- 
out a dowry, and as my husband had only a large library 



174 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

of books and a great deal of learning, the bed and pillows 
were thought the most profitable investment. After this 
I thought that I had discovered the philosopher's stone. 
So when a new carpet or mattress was going to be needed, 
or when, at the close of the year, it began to be evident 
that my family accounts, like poor Dora's, "wouldn't add 
up, " then I used to say to my faithful friend and factotum 
Anna, who shared all my joys and sorrows, "Now, if you 
will keep the babies and attend to the things in the house 
for one day, I '11 write a piece, and then we shall be out 
of the scrape. " So I became an author, — very modest at 
first, I do assure you, and remonstrating very seriously 
with the friends who had thought it best to put my name 
to the pieces by way of getting up a reputation ; and if you 
ever see a woodcut of me, with an immoderately long nose, 
on the cover of all the U. S. Almanacs, I wish you to 
take notice that I have been forced into it contrary to my 
natural modesty by the imperative solicitations of my dear 
five thousand friends and the public generally. One thing 
I must say with regard to my life at the West, which you 
will understand better than many English women could. 

I lived tAvo miles from the city of Cincinnati, in the 
country, and domestic service, not always you know to be 
found in the city, is next to an impossibility to obtain in 
the country, even by those who are willing to give the 
highest wages; so what was to be expected for poor me, 
who had very little of this world's goods to offer? 

Had it not been for my inseparable friend Anna, a 
noble-hearted English girl, who landed on our shores in 
destitution and sorrow, and clave to me as Ruth to Naomi, 
I had never lived through all the trials which this uncer- 
tainty and want of domestic service imposed on both; you 
may imagine, therefore, how glad I was when, our semi- 
nary property being divided out into small lots which were 
rented at a low price, a number of poor families settled in 



1853] LETTEK TO MES. FOLLEN 175 

our vicinity, from whom we could occasionally obtain do- 
mestic service. About a dozen families of liberated slaves 
were among the number, and they became my favorite 
resort in cases of emergency. If anybody wishes to have 
a black face look handsome, let them be left, as I have 
been, in feeble health in oppressive hot weather, with a 
sick baby in arms, and two or three other little ones in the 
nursery, and not a servant in the whole house to do a 
single turn. Then, if they could see my good old Aunt 
Frankie coming with her honest, bluff, black face, her 
long, strong arms, her chest as big and stout as a barrel, 
and her hilarious, hearty laugh, perfectly delighted to take 
one's washing and do it at a fair price, they would appre- 
ciate the beauty of black people. 

My cook, poor Eliza Buck, — how she would stare to 
think of her name going to England ! — was a regular epi- 
tome of slave life in herself; fat, gentle, easy, loving and 
lovable, always calling my very modest house and door- 
yard "The Place," as if it had been a plantation with seven 
hundred hands on it. She had lived through the whole 
sad story of a Virginia-raised slave's life. In her youth 
she must have been a very handsome mulatto girl. Her 
voice was sweet, and her manners refined and agreeable. 
She was raised in a good family as a nurse and seamstress. 
When the family became embarrassed, she was suddenly 
sold on to a plantation in Louisiana. She has often told 
me how, without any warning, she was suddenly forced 
into a carriage, and saw her little mistress screaming and 
stretching her arms from the window towards her as she 
was driven away. She has told me of scenes on the Lou- 
isiana plantation, and she has often been out at night by 
stealth ministering to poor slaves who had been mangled 
and lacerated by the lash. Hence she was sold into Ken- 
tucky, and her last master was the father of all her chil- 
dren. On this point she ever maintained a delicacy and 



176 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

reserve that always appeared to me remarkable. She al- 
ways called him her husband; and it was not till after she 
had lived with me some years that I discovered the real 
nature of the connection. I shall never forget how sorry 
I felt for her, nor my feelings at her humble apology, 
"You know, Mrs. Stowe, slave women cannot help them- 
selves." She had two very pretty quadroon daughters, 
with her beautiful hair and eyes, interesting children, 
whom I had instructed in the family school with my chil- 
dren. Time would fail to tell you all that I learned inci- 
dentally of the slave system in the history of various slaves 
who came into my family, and of the underground railroad 
which, I may say, ran through our house. But the letter 
is already too long. 

You ask with regard to the remuneration which I have 
received for my work here in America. Having been poor 
all my life and expecting to be poor the rest of it, the idea 
of making money by a book which I wrote just because I 
could not help it never occurred to me. It was therefore 
an agreeable surprise to receive ten thousand dollars as the 
first-fruits of three months' sale. I presume as much more 
is now due. Mr. Bosworth in England, the firm of Clarke 
& Co., and Mr. Bentley, have all ofi'ered me an interest in 
the sales of their editions in London. I am very glad of 
it, both on account of the value of what they offer, and 
the value of the example they set in this matter, wherein 
I think that justice has been too little regarded. 

I have been invited to visit Scotland, and shall proba- 
bly spend the summer there and in England. 

I have very much at heart a design to erect in some of 
the Northern States a normal school for the education of 
colored teachers in the United States and in Canada. I 
have very much wished that some permanent memorial of 
good to the colored race might be created out of the pro- 
ceeds of a work which promises to have so unprecedented 



1853] LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN 177 

a sale. My own share of the profits will be less than that 
of the publishers, either English or American; but I am 
willing to give largely for this purpose, and I have no 
doubt that the publishers, both American and English, 
will unite with me; for nothing tends more immediately 
to the emancipation of the slave than the education and 
elevation of the free. 

I am now writing a work which will contain, perhaps, 
an equal amount of matter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It 
will contain all the facts and documents on which that 
story was founded, and an immense body of facts, reports 
of trials, legal documents, and testimony of people now 
living South, which will more than confirm every state- 
ment in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 

I must confess that till I began the examination of 
facts in order to write this book, much as I thought I knew 
before, I had not begun to measure the depth of the abyss. 
The law records of courts and judicial proceedings are so 
incredible as to fill me with amazement whenever I think 
of them. It seems to me that the book cannot but be 
felt, and, coming upon the sensibility awaked by the 
other, do something. 

I suffer exquisitely in writing these things. It may 
be truly said that I write with my heart's blood. Many 
times in writing " Uncle Tom's Cabin " I thought my health 
would fail utterly; but I prayed earnestly that God would 
help me till I got through, and still I am pressed beyond 
measure and above strength. 

This horror, this nightmare abomination! can it be in 
my country ! It lies like lead on my heart, it shadows my 
life with sorrow ; the more so that I feel, as for my own 
brothers, for the South, and am pained by every horror I 
am obliged to write, as one who is forced by some awful 
oath to disclose in court some family disgrace. Many 
times I have thought that I must die, and yet I pray God 



178 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

that I may live to see something done, I shall in all 
probability be in London in May : shall I see you ? 

It seems to me so odd and dream-like that so many 
persons desire to see me, and now I cannot help thinking 
that they will think, when they do, that God hath chosen 
"the weak things of this world." 

If I live till spring I shall hope to see Shakespeare's 
grave, and Milton's mulberry-tree, and the good land of 
my fathers, — old, old England ! May that day come ! 
Yours affectionately, H. B. Stowe. 

A sequel to the statements in this letter regarding the 
profits received from the sales of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " is 
given by Charles Dudley Warner in an admirable history 
of the book published in " The Atlantic Monthly." Mr. 
Warner says : — 

"The story was dramatized in the United States in 
August, 1852, without the consent or knowledge of the 
author, and was played most successfully in the leading 
cities, and subsequently was acted in every capital in Eu- 
rope. Mrs. Stowe had neglected to secure the dramatic 
rights, and she derived no benefit from the great popularity 
of a drama which still holds the stage. From the phe- 
nomenal sale of a book which was literally read by the 
whole world, the author received only the ten per cent, on 
the American editions, and by the laws of her own country 
her copyright expired before her death." 

Professor and Mrs. Stowe sailed from New York in 
April for Liverpool to see Europe for the first time. In 
spite of all the delightful recognition she had received from 
England, through letters, she could not fail to be surprised 
at the universal respect and affection which followed her 
footsteps everywhere. 

Mrs. Stowe not only wrote long letters home to her 
children and family describing the almost unspeakable 



1853] FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 179 

pleasures of this summer tour, but before another year two 
volumes of " Sunny Memories " were given to the public. 
Her industry never slackened. On arriving at Liverpool, 
she tells her children that they were considering the sub- 
ject of which hotel they should find most convenient, 
" when we found the son of Mr. Cropper, of Dingle Bank, 
waiting in the cabin to take us with him to their hospi- 
table abode. In a few moments after the baggage had 
been examined, we all bade adieu to the old ship, and 
went on board the little steam tender which carries passen- 
gers up to the city. 

"I had an early opportunity of making acquaintance 
with my English brethren; for, much to my astonishment, 
I found quite a crowd on the wharf, and we walked up to 
our carriage through a long lane of people, bowing, and 
looking very glad to see us. 

"When I came to get into the hack it was surrounded 
by more faces than I could count. They stood very quietly, 
and looked very kindly, though evidently very much deter- 
mined to look. Something prevented the hack from mov- 
ing on; so the interview was prolonged for some time. 

"Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through Liv- 
erpool and a mile or two out, and at length wound its way 
along the gravel paths of a beautiful little retreat, on the 
banks of the Mersey, called the ' Dingle. ' It opened to 
my eyes like a paradise, all wearied as I was with the toss- 
ing of the sea. 

"The next morning we slept late and hurried to dress, 
remembering our engagement to breakfast with the brother 
of our host, whose cottage stands on the same ground, 
within a few steps of our own. I had not the slightest 
idea of what the English mean by a breakfast, and there- 
fore went in all innocence, supposing I should see nobody 
but the family circle of my acquaintances. Quite to my 



180 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

astonishment, I found a party of between thirty and forty 
people; ladies sitting with their bonnets on, as in a morn- 
ing call. It was impossible, however, to feel more than 
a momentary embarrassment in the friendly warmth and 
cordiality of the circle by whom we were surrounded. 

" In the evening I went into Liverpool to attend a party 
of friends of the anti-slavery cause. When I was going 
away, the lady of the house said that the servants were 
anxious to see me ; so I came into the dressing-room to 
give them an opportunity. 

"The next day was appointed to leave Liverpool. A 
great number of friends accompanied us to the cars, and a 
beautiful bouquet of flowers was sent with a very affecting 
message from a sick gentleman, who, from the retirement 
of his chamber, felt a desire to testify his sympathy. We 
left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous and excited 
by the vibration of an atmosphere of universal sympathy 
and kindness, and found ourselves, at length, shut from 
the warm adieu of our friends, in a snug compartment of 
the railroad car. 

"Well, we are in Scotland at last," she continues, "and 
now our pulse rises as the sun declines in the west. We 
catch glimpses of Solway Frith and talk about Redgauntlet. 
The sun went down and night drew on; still we were in 
Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch litera- 
ture were in the ascendant. We sang ' Auld Lang Syne, ' 
* Scots wha hae, ' and ' Bonnie Doon, ' and then, changing 
the key, sang ' Dundee, ' ' Elgin, ' and ' Martyr. ' 

'"Take care,' said Mr. Stowe; 'don't get too much 
excited. ' 

" ' Ah, ' said I, ' this is a thing that comes only once in 
a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall 
never come into Scotland for the first time again. ' 

"While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm, 
the cars stopped at Lockerbie, where the real Old Mortality 



1853] SCOTLAND 181 

is buried. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon 
became conscious that there was quite a number of people 
collected, peering into the window; and with a strange 
kind of thrill, I heard my name inquired for in the Scot- 
tish accent. I went to the window; there were men, 
women, and children gathered, and hand after hand was 
presented, with the words, ' Ye 're welcome to Scotland ! ' 

" Then they inquired for and shook hands with all the 
party, having in some mysterious manner got the know- 
ledge of who they were, even down to little G., whom 
they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when I had 
a heart so warm for this old country ? I shall never forget 
the thrill of those words, ' Ye 're welcome to Scotland,' 
nor the * Gude-night. ' 

"After that we found similar welcomes in many succeed- 
ing stopping- places; and though I did wave a towel out 
of the window, instead of a pocket-handkerchief, and com- 
mit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to play 
my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland and we were 
coming on well together. Who the good souls were that 
were thus watching for us through the night, I am sure I 
do not know ; but that they were of the * one blood ' which 
unites all the families of the earth, I felt. 

"At Glasgow, friends were waiting in the station-house. 
Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm greet- 
ings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle, 
through which we were conducted into a carriage, and loud 
cheers of welcome sent a throb, as the Voice of living 
Scotland. 

"I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, 
by the light of a lantern, Argyll Street. It was past 
twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cosy par- 
lor, with friends whom I have ever since been glad to re- 
member. In a little time we were all safely housed in 
our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the 
first time in Scotland. 



182 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

"The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce 
could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me. 



"All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and 
overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took brother 
Charles from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon 
to read and answer them in the shortest manner; letters 
from all classes of people, high and low, rich and poor, in 
all shades and styles of composition, poetry and prose; 
some mere outbursts of feeling ; some invitations; some 
advice and suggestions; some requests and inquiries; some 
presenting books, or flowers, or fruit. 

"Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, 
Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in 
Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all descriptions 
to go everywhere, and to see everything, and to stay in so 
many places. One kind, venerable minister, with his 
lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet manse 
on the beautiful shores of the Clyde. 

" For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return ? 
There was scarce time for even a grateful thought on each. 
People have often said to me that it must have been an 
exceeding bore. For my part, I could not think of regard- 
ing it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sad- 
ness. 

" In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to 
see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the lord 
mayor in England. His title and office in both countries 
continue only a year, except in case of reelection. 

"As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a 
throng of people who had come out to see me, I could not 
help saying, ' What went ye out for to see 1 a reed shaken 
with the wind ? ' In fact, I was so worn out that I could 
hardly walk through the building. The next morning I 
was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one 



1853] TRIBUTES OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE 183 

that called, or to hear any of the letters. I passed most 
of the day in bed, but in the evening I had to get up, as 
I had engaged to drink tea with two thousand people." 

Speaking of one of the gatherings of the working people 
which she especially enjoyed in Glasgow at this time, she 
says: "I was struck this night with the resemblance be- 
tween the Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees 
the distinctive nationality of a country more in the middle 
and laboring classes than in the higher, and accordingly at 
this meeting there was more nationality, I thought, than 
at the other." 

Writing from Scotland to her Aunt Esther, Mrs. Stowe 
says: "The views of Scotland, which lay on my mother's 
table, even while I was a little child, and in poring over 
which I spent so many happy dreamy hours, — the Scotch 
ballads which were the delight of our evening fireside, and 
which seemed almost to melt the soul out of me, before I 
was old enough to understand their words, — the songs of 
Burns, which had been a household treasure among us, — 
the enchantments of Scott, — all these dimly returned upon 
me. It was the result of them all which I felt in nerve 
and brain. 

"And that reminds me how much of our pleasure in 
literature results from its reflection on us from other minds. 

"So in coming to Scotland I seem to feel not only my 
own individuality, but all that my friends would have felt, 
had they been with me. For sometimes we seem to be 
encompassed, as by a cloud, with a sense of the sympathy 
of the absent and the dead." 

She continues to their children : — 

"Somewhere near Roseneath I was presented, by his 
own request, to a broad-shouldered Scotch farmer, who 
stood some six feet two, and who paid me the compliment 
to say that he had read my book, and that he- would walk 
six miles to see me any day. Such a flattering evidence 



184 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

of discriminating taste, of course, disposed my heart to- 
wards him ; but when I went up and put my hand into his 
great prairie of a palm, I was as a grasshopper in my own 
eyes. I inquired who he was and was told he was one of 
the Duke of Argyll's farmers. I thought to myself if all 
the duke's farmers were of this pattern, that he might be 
able to speak to the enemy in the gates to some purpose. 

"It was concluded after we left Koseneath that, instead 
of returning by the boat, we should take carriage and ride 
home along the banks of the river. In our carriage were 
Mr. S. and myself. Dr. Robson, and Lady Anderson. 
About this time I commenced my first essay towards giving 
titles, and made, as you may suppose, rather an odd piece 
of work of it, generally saying ' Mrs. ' first, and ' Lady ' 
afterwards, and then begging pardon. Lady Anderson 
laughed and said she would give me a general absolution. 
She is a truly genial, hearty Scotchwoman, and seemed to 
enter happily into the spirit of the hour. 

"As we rode on, we found that the news of our coming 
had spread through the village. People came and stood in 
their doors, beckoning, bowing, smiling, and waving their 
handkerchiefs, and the carriage was several times stopped 
by persons who came to off"er flowers. I remember, in 
particular, a group of young girls bringing to the carriage 
two of the most beautiful children I ever saw, whose little 
hands literally deluged us with flowers. 

"At the village of Helensburgh we stopped a little 
while to call upon Mrs. Bell, the wife of Mr. Bell, the 
inventor of the steamboat. His invention in this country 
was at about the same time as that of Fulton in America. 
Mrs. Bell came to the carriage to speak to us. She is a 
venerable woman, far advanced in years. They had pre- 
pared a lunch for us, and quite a number of people had 
come together to meet us, but our friends said there was 
not time for us to stop. 



1853] POWER OF FICTION" 185 

"We rode through several villages after this, and met 
everywhere a warm welcome. What pleased me was, that 
it was not mainly from the literary, nor the rich, nor the 
great, but the plain, common people. The butcher came 
out of his stall and the baker from his shop, the miller 
dusty with flour, the blooming, comely young mother, 
with her baby in her arms, all smiling and bowing, with 
that hearty, intelligent, friendly look, as if they knew we 
should be glad to see them. 

"Once, while we stopped to change horses, I, for the 
sake of seeing something more of the country, walked on. 
It seems the honest landlord and his wife were greatly dis- 
appointed at this; however, they got into the carriage and 
rode on to see me, and I shook hands with them with a 
right good will. 

"We saw several of the clergymen, who came out to 
meet us; and I remember stopping just to be introduced, 
one by one, to a most delightful family, a gray-headed 
father and mother, with comely brothers and fair sisters, 
all looking so kindly and homelike that I should have 
been glad to accept the invitation they gave me to their 
dwelling. 

"This day has been a strange phenomenon to me. In 
the first place, I have seen in all these villages how uni- 
versally the people read. I have seen how capable they 
are of a generous excitement and enthusiasm, and how 
much may be done by a work of fiction so written as to 
enlist those sympathies which are common to all classes. 
Certainly a great deal may be effected in this way, if God 
gives to any one the power, as I hope He will to many. 
The power of fictitious writing, for good as well as evil, 
is a thing which ought most seriously to be reflected on. 
No one can fail to see that in our day it is becoming a 
very great agency. 

" We came home quite tired, as you may well suppose. 



186 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

You will not be surprised that the next day I found my- 
self more disposed to keep my bed than go out. 

"Two days later: We bade farewell to Glasgow, over- 
whelmed with kindness to the last, and only oppressed by 
the thought of how little that was satisfactory we were 
able to give in return. Again we were in the railroad car 
on our way to Edinburgh. A pleasant two hours' trip is 
this from Glasgow to Edinburgh. When the cars stopped 
at Linlithgow station, the name started us as out of a 
dream. Here was born that woman whose beauty and 
whose name are set in the strong rough Scotch heart, as 
a diamond in granite ! 

"In Edinburgh the cars stopped amid a crowd of peo- 
ple who had assembled to meet us. The lord provost met 
us at the door of the car, and presented us to the magis- 
tracy of the city and the committees of the Edinburgh Anti- 
Slavery Societies. The drab dresses and pure white bon- 
nets of many Friends were conspicuous among the dense 
moving crowd, as white doves seen against a dark cloud. 
Mr. S. and myself, and our future hostess, Mrs. Wig- 
ham, entered the carriage with the lord provost, and away 
we drove, the crowd following with their shouts and cheers. 
I was inexpressibly touched and affected by this. While 
we were passing the monument of Scott, I felt an oppres- 
sive melancholy. What a moment life seems in the pre- 
sence of the noble dead ! What a momentary thing is art, 
in all its beauty ! Where are all those great souls that 
have created such an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh ? 
and how little a space was given them to live and enjoy! 

"We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the 
university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through 
many of the principal streets, amid shouts, and smiles, and 
greetings. Some boys amused me very much by their 
pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage. 

"'Heck,' says one of them, 'that's her; see the 
courls ! ' 



3853] SCOTLAND'S VOICE TO AMEBIC A 187 

"The various engravers who have amused themselves by 
diversifying my face for the public, having all, with great 
unanimity, agreed in giving prominence to this point, I 
suppose the urchins thought they were on safe ground 
there. I certainly think I answered one good purpose 
that day, and that is of giving the much-oppressed and 
calumniated class called boys an opportunity to develop all 
the noise that was in them, — a thing for which I think 
they must bless me in their remembrances. 

"At last the carriage drove into a deep-graveled yard, 
and we alighted at a porch covered with green ivy, and 
found ourselves once more at home. 

"You may spare your anxieties about me, for I do as- 
sure you that if I were an old Sevres china jar I could not 
have more careful handling than I do. Everybody is 
considerate; a great deal to say when there appears to be 
so much excitement. Everybody seems to understand how 
good-for-nothing I am; and yet, with all this considera- 
tion, I have been obliged to keep my room and bed for a 
good part of the time. Of the multitudes who have called, 
I have seen scarcely any. 

"To-morrow evening is to be the great tea-party here. 
How in the world I am ever to live through it I don't 
know. 

"April 26. Last night came off the soiree. The hall 
was handsomely decorated with flags in front. We went 
with the lord provost in his carriage. We went up as 
before into a dressing-room, where I was presented to 
many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the cheer- 
ing, clapping, and stamping at first strike one with a 
strange sensation; but then everybody looks so heartily 
pleased and delighted, and there is such an all-pervading 
atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as makes me in a 
few moments feel quite at home. After all, I consider 
that these cheers and applauses are Scotland's voice to 



188 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

America, a recognition of the brotherhood of the coun- 
tries. 

"The national penny offering, consisting of a thousand 
golden sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver, stood con- 
spicuously in view of the audience. It has been an unso- 
licited offering, given in the smallest sums, often from the 
extreme poverty of the giver. The committee who col- 
lected it in Edinburgh and Glasgow bore witness to the 
willingness with which the very poorest contributed the 
offering of their sympathy. In one cottage they found a 
blind woman, and said, ' Here, at least, is one who will 
feel no interest, as she cannot have read the book. ' 

" ' Indeed, ' said the old lady, * if I cannot read, my son 
has read it to me, and I 've got my penny saved to give.' 

"It is to my mind extremely touching to see how the 
poor, in their poverty, can be moved to a generosity sur- 
passing that of the rich. Nor do I mourn that they took 
it from their slender store, because I know that a penny 
given from a kindly impulse is a greater comfort and bless- 
ing to the poorest giver than even a penny received. 

"As in the case of the other meeting, we came out long 
before the speeches were ended. Well, of course I did 
not sleep all night, and the next day I felt quite miserable. 

"As to all engagements, however, I am in a state of 
happy acquiescence, having resigned myself, as a very 
tame lion, into the hands of my keepers. Whenever the 
time comes for me to do anything, I try to behave as well 
as I can, which, as Dr. Young says, is all that an angel 
could do in the same circumstances. 

"As to the letters I receive, many of them are mere 
outbursts of feeling; yet they are interesting as showing 
the state of the public mind. Many of them are on kin- 
dred topics of moral reform, in which they seem to have an 
intuitive sense that we should be interested. I am not, of 
course, able to answer them all, but brother Charles does, 



1853] SIR WALTER SCOTT 189 

and it takes a good part of every day. One was from a shoe- 
maker's wife in one of the islands, with a copy of very 
fair verses. Many have come accompanying little keepsakes 
and gifts. It seems to me rather touching and sad, that 
people should want to give me things when I am not able 
to give an interview or even a note in return. Charles 
wrote from six to twelve o'clock, steadily, answering letters. 

"The meeting in Dundee was in a large church, densely 
crowded, and conducted much as the others had been. 
When they came to sing the closing hymn, I hoped they 
would sing Dundee; but they did not, and I fear in Scot- 
land, as elsewhere, the characteristic national melodies are 
giving way before more modern ones." 

It is very interesting in following Mrs. Stowe's footsteps 
through Scotland to see how her minute knowledge of the 
history and literature of the country made every spot alive 
with spirits of the past or figures of the fancy. As they 
passed Glamis Castle she says: "We could see but a 
glimpse of it from the road, but the very sound of the 
name was enough to stimulate our imagination. Scott says 
in his ' Demonology ' that he never came anywhere near to 
being overcome with a superstitious feeling, except twice 
in his life, and one was on the night he slept in Glamis 
Castle. . . . Scarcely ever a man had so much relish for 
the supernatural and so little faith in it. 

"I enjoyed my ride to Aberdeen more than anything we 
had seen, the country is so wild and singular. . . . The 
architecture of the cathedrals of Glasgow and Aberdeen 
reminds me of what Walter Scott says of the Scotch people, 
whom he compares to the native sycamore of their hills, 
' which scorns to be biased in its mode of growth, even by 
the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its 
branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no 
weather side to the storm, and may be broken, but can 
never be bended.' 



190 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

"We lingered a long time about Aberdeen Cathedral, 
and could scarcely tear ourselves away. We paced up and 
down under the old trees, looking off on the waters of the 
Don, listening to the waving branches, and, falling into 
a dreamy state of mind, thought what if it were six hun- 
dred years ago, and we were pious, simple-hearted old 
abbots ! What a fine place that would be to walk up and 
down at eventide or on a Sabbath morning, reciting peni- 
tential psalms or reading St. Augustine. 

"I cannot get over the feeling that the souls of the dead 
do somehow connect themselves with the places of their 
former habitation, and that the hush and thrill of spirit 
which we feel in them may be owing to the overshadow- 
ing presence of the invisible." 

Of Abbotsford she says: "I observe that it is quite 
customary to speak as if it were a pity he ever undertook 
it; but viewed as a development of his inner life, as a 
working out in wood and stone of favorite fancies and 
cherished ideas, the building has to me a deep interest. . . . 
Wrought out in this way it has grown up like a bank of 
coral; ... we should look at it as the poet's endeavor to 
render outward and visible the dreamland of his thoughts, 
and to create for himself a refuge from the cold dull reali- 
ties of life in an architectural romance. " 

Nothing escaped her eye that was connected with the 
memory of Scott. She notes that the porch was copied 
from one at Linlithgow Palace; that the black and white 
marbles were from the Hebrides; the carved oak for one 
room from Dunfermline Abbey; the ceiling of another 
copied from Roslin; and a fireplace copied from a niche at 
Melrose. There also she marked the ancient pulpit of 
Erskine, wrought into a wall, the old door of Tolbooth 
prison, and many other delightful things which Scott ap- 
propriated to make his home unique and interesting to read- 
ers and scholars, if not to the eye of the ordinary tourist. 



1853] JOSEPH STUKGE AND ELIHU BUERITT 191 

Her account of Melrose, too, is as fresh as if a large half- 
century of devotees of Scott had not walked through it, 
— and her devotion at Dry burgh that of a friend to Scott 
as well as a lover of his genius. 

"It was a rainy, misty morning," she continued, "when 
I left my kind retreat and friends in Edinburgh. Consid- 
erate as everybody had been about imposing on my time 
or strength, still you may well believe that I was much 
exhausted. We left Edinburgh, therefore, with the deter- 
mination to plunge at once into some hidden and unknown 
spot, where we might spend two or three days quietly by 
ourselves ; remembering your Sunday at Stratf ord-on- Avon, 
I proposed that we should go there. As Stratford, how- 
ever, is oflf the railroad line, we determined to accept the 
invitation, which was lying by us, from our friend, Joseph 
Sturge, of Birmingham, and take sanctuary with him. So 
we wrote on, intrusting him with the secret, and charging 
him on no account to let any one know of our arrival." 

Of course the secret could not be kept. 

"As we were drinking tea that evening, Elihu Burritt 
came in. It was the first time I had ever seen him, 
though I had heard a great deal of him from our friends in 
Edinburgh. He is a man in middle life, tall and slender, 
with fair complexion, blue eyes, an air of delicacy and 
refinement, and manners of great gentleness. My ideas of 
the ' learned blacksmith ' had been of something altogether 
more ponderous and peremptory. Elihu has been for 
some years operating, in England and on the Continent, in 
a movement which many in our half-Christianized times 
regard with as much incredulity as the grim old warlike 
barons did the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writ- 
ing. The sword now, as then, seems so much more direct 
a way to terminate controversies, that many Christian men, 
even, cannot conceive how the world is to get along with- 
out it. 



192 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

"Before we left, we had agreed to meet a circle of 
friends from Birmingham, consisting of the Abolition So- 
ciety there, which is of long standing, extending back in 
its memories to the very commencement of the agitation 
under Clarkson and Wilberforce. The windows of the 
parlor were opened to the ground; and the company in- 
vited filled not only the room, but stood in a crowd on the 
grass around the window. Among the peaceable company 
present was an admiral in the navy, a fine, cheerful old 
gentleman, who entered with hearty interest into the scene. 

"A throng of friends accompanied us to the depot, while 
from Birmingham we had the pleasure of the company of 
Elihu Burritt, and enjoyed a delightful run to London, 
where we arrived towards evening." 

The evening of her arrival in London, she went to a 
dinner at the lord mayor's, where she saw many distin- 
guished persons. 

"A very dignified gentleman, dressed in black velvet, 
with a fine head, made his way through the throng, and 
sat down by me, introducing himself as Lord' Chief Baron 
Pollock. He told me he had just been reading the legal 
part of the 'Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and remarked 
especially on the opinion of Judge Ruffin, in the case of 
State V. Mann, as having made a deep impression on his 
mind. 

"Dinner was announced between nine and ten o'clock, 
and we were conducted into a splendid hall, where the 
tables were laid. 

"Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now 
beheld for the first time, and was surprised to see looking 
so young. Mr. Justice Talfourd, known as the author of 
' Ion, ' was also there with his lady. She had a beautiful, 
antique cast of head. The lord mayor was simply dressed 
in black, without any other adornment than a massive gold 
chain. We rose from table between eleven and twelve 



1853] LONDON 193 

o'clock — that is, we ladies — and went into the drawing- 
room, where I was presented to Mrs. Dickens and several 
other ladies. Mrs. Dickens is a good specimen of a truly 
English woman ; tall, large, and well developed, with fine, 
healthy color, and an air of frankness, cheerfulness, and re- 
liability. A friend whispered to me that she was as ob- 
serving and fond of humor as her husband, 

"After a while the gentlemen came back to the draw- 
ing-room, and I had a few moments of very pleasant, 
friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens, They are both 
people that one could not know a little of without desiring 
to know more," 

The following day the American party dined with Lord 
Carlisle, of whom Mrs. Stowe says : — 

'* Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America, and so is 
his sister, the Duchess of Sutherland, He is the only 
English traveler who ever wrote notes on our country in 
a real spirit of appreciation, 

" We went about seven o'clock, the dinner hour being 
here somewhere between eight and nine. We were shown 
into an ante-room adjoining the entrance hall, and from 
that into an adjacent apartment, where we met Lord Car- 
lisle. The room had a pleasant, social air, warmed and 
enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles, 

"We had never, any of vis, met Lord Carlisle before; 
but the considerateness and cordiality of our reception 
obviated whatever embarrassment there might have been 
in this circumstance. In a few moments after we were all 
seated, a servant announced the Duchess of Sutherland, 
and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is tall and stately, 
with a most noble bearing. Her fair complexion, blonde 
hair, and full lips speak of Saxon blood. 

" The only person present not of the family connection 
was my quondam correspondent in America, Arthur Helps. 
Somehow or other I had formed the impression from his 



194 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

writings that he was a venerable sage of very advanced 
years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit from the 
door of his cell. Conceive my surprise to find a genial 
young gentleman of about twenty-five, who looked as if he 
might enjoy a joke as well as another man. 

"After the ladies left the table, the conversation turned 
on the Maine law, which seems to be considered over here 
as a phenomenon in legislation, and many of the gentle- 
men present inquired about it with great curiosity. 

"After the gentlemen rejoined us, the Duke and Duchess 
of Argyll came in, and Lord and Lady Blantyre. These 
ladies are the daughters of the Duchess of Sutherland. 
The Duchess of Argyll is of slight and fairy-like figure, 
with flaxen hair and blue eyes, answering well enough to 
the description of Annot Lyle in the ' Legend of Montrose. ' 
Lady Blantyre was somewhat taller, of fuller figure, with a 
very brilliant bloom. Lord Blantyre is of the Stuart blood, 
a tall and slender young man with very graceful manners. 

"As to the Duke of Argyll, we found that the picture 
drawn of him by his countrymen in Scotland was in every 
way correct. Though slight of figure, with fair complex- 
ion and blue eyes, his whole appearance is indicative of 
energy and vivacity. His talents and efficiency have made 
him a member of the British Cabinet at a much earlier age 
than is usual; and he has distinguished himself not only 
in political life, but as a writer, having given to the world 
a Avork on Presbyterianism, embracing an analysis of the 
ecclesiastical history of Scotland since the Reformation, 
which is spoken of as written with great ability, and in a 
most liberal spirit. He made many inquiries about our 
distinguished men, particularly of Emerson, Longfellow, 
and Hawthorne; also of Prescott, who appears to be a 
general favorite here. I felt at the moment that we never 
value our own literary men so much as when we are placed 
in a circle of intelligent foreigners." 



1853] STAFFORD HOUSE 195 

Of another entertainment she writes : — 

" Before the evening was through I was talked out and 
worn out; there was hardly a chip of me left. To-morrow 
at eleven o'clock comes the meeting at Stafford House. 
What it will amount to I do not know; but I take no 
thought for the morrow." 

May 8. 

My dear C. , — In fulfillment of my agreement I will 
tell you, as nearly as I can remember, all the details of the 
meeting at Stafford House. At about eleven o'clock we 
drove under the arched carriage-way of a mansion exter- 
nally not very showy in appearance. 

When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked 
handsomer by daylight than in the evening. She received 
us with the same warm and simple kindness which she had 
shown before. We were presented to the Duke of Suther- 
land. He is a tall, slender man, with rather a thin face, 
light-brown hair, and a mild blue eye, with an air of gen- 
tleness and dignity. 

Among the first that entered were the members of the 
family, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord and Lady 
Blantyre, the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, and 
Lady Emma Campbell. Then followed Lord Shaftesbury 
with his beautiful lady, and her father and mother, Lord 
and Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston is of middle 
height, with a keen dark eye and black hair streaked with 
gray. There is something peculiarly alert and vivacious 
about all his movements; in short, his appearance perfectly 
answers to what we know of him from his public life. 
One has a strange, mythological feeling about the existence 
of people of whom one hears for many years without ever 
seeing them. While talking with Lord Palmerston I 
could but remember how often I had heard father and Mr. 
S. exulting over his foreign dispatches by our own fire- 
side. There were present, also. Lord John Russell, Mr. 



196 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

Gladstone, and Lord Granville. The latter we all thought 
very strikingly resembled in his appearance the poet Long- 
fellow. 

After lunch the whole party ascended to the picture- 
gallery, passing on our way the grand staircase and hall, 
said to be the most magnificent in Europe. The company 
now began to assemble and throng the gallery, and very 
soon the vast room was crowded. Among the throng I 
remember many presentations, but of course must have 
forgotten many more. Archbishop Whately Avas there, 
with Mrs. and Miss Whately ; Macaulay, with two of his 
sisters; Milman, the poet and historian; the Bishop of 
Oxford, Chevalier Bunsen and lady, and many more. 

When all the company were together, Lord Shaftesbury 
read a very short, kind, and considerate address in behalf of 
the ladies of England, expressive of their cordial welcome. 

This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it, is a 
most remarkable fact. Kind and gratifying as its arrange- 
ments have been to me, I am far from appropriating it to 
myself individually as a personal honor. I rather regard 
it as the most public expression possible of the feelings of 
the women of England on one of the most important ques- 
tions of our day, that of individual liberty considered in 
its religious bearings. 

On this occasion the Duchess of Sutherland presented 
Mrs. Stowe with a superb gold bracelet, made in the form 
of a slave's shackle, bearing the inscription: "We trust it 
is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken." On 
two of the links were inscribed the dates of the abolition 
of the slave-trade and of slavery in English territory. 
Years after its presentation to her, Mrs. Stowe was able to 
have engraved on the clasp of this bracelet, " Constitutional 
Amendment (forever abolishing slavery in the United 
States)." 



1853] SIGHT-SEEING 197 

Of a breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan's, she tells her 
daughter : — 

"We were set down at Westbourne Terrace, somewhere, 
I believe, about eleven o'clock, and found quite a number 
already in the drawing-room. I had met Macaulay before, 
but being seated between him and Dean Milman, I must 
confess I was a little embarrassed at times, because I 
wanted to hear what they were both saying at the same 
time. However, by the use of the faculty by which you 
play a piano with both hands, I got on very comfortably. 

"There were several other persons of note present at 
this breakfast, whose conversation I had not an opportu- 
nity of hearing, as they sat at a distance from me. There 
was Lord Glenelg, brother of Sir Robert Grant, governor 
of Bombay, whose beautiful hymns have rendered him 
familiar in America. The favorite one, commencing 

'When gathering clouds around I view,' 

was from his pen. 

"The historian Hallam was also present, and I think it 
very likely there may have been other celebrities whom I 
did not know. I am always finding out, a day or two 
after, that I have been with somebody very remarkable 
and did not know it at the time." 

She continues to her sister : — 

"Like Miss Edgeworth's philosophic little Frank, we 
are obliged to make out a list of what man must want and 
of what he may want; and in our list of the former we 
set down, in large and decisive characters, one quiet day for 
the exploration and enjoyment of Windsor. 

"One of the first objects that attracted my attention 
upon entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon, 
standing in one corner. It was much such a carriage as all 
mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely in the 



198 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

history of almost every family. It had neat curtains and 
cushions of green merino, and was not royal, only maternal. 
I mused over the little thing with a good deal of interest. 

" We went for our dinner to the White Hart, the very 
inn which Shakespeare celebrates in his ' Merry Wives, ' 
and had a most overflowing merry time of it. After din- 
ner we had a beautiful drive. 

"We were bent upon looking up the church which gave 
rise to Gray's ' Elegy in a Country Churchyard,' intending 
when we got there to have a little scene over it; Mr. S., 
in all the conscious importance of having been there before, 
assuring us that he knew exactly where it was. So, after 
some difficulty with our coachman, and being stopped at 
one church which would not answer our purpose in any 
respect, we were at last set down by one which looked au- 
thentic ; embowered in mossy elms, with a most ancient and 
goblin yew-tree, an ivy-mantled tower, all perfect as could 
be. Here, leaning on the old fence, we repeated the Elegy, 
which certainly applies here as beautifully as language could 
apply. 

"Imagine our chagrin, on returning to London, at being 
informed that we had not been to the genuine churchyard 
after all. The gentleman who wept over the scenes of his 
early days on the wrong doorstep was not more grievously 
disappointed. However, he and we could both console 
ourselves with the reflection that the emotion was admir- 
able, and wanted only the right place to make it the most 
appropriate in the world. 

"The evening after our return from Windsor was spent 
with our kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney. After break- 
fast the next day, Mr. S., C, and I drove out to call upon 
Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging on the out- 
skirts of London. I would that some of the editors in 
America, who have thrown out insinuations about his liv- 
ing in luxury, could have seen the utter bareness and plain- 



1853] DRESSMAKING 199 

ness of the reception room, which had nothing in it beyond 
the simplest necessaries. He entered into conversation with 
us with cheerfulness, speaking English well, though with 
the idioms of foreign languages. When we parted he 
took my hand kindly and said, * God bless you, my child ! ' 

" I have been quite amused with something which has 
happened lately. This week the ' Times ' has informed the 
United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe is getting a new dress 
made ! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware what sort 
of a place her dress is being made in; and there is a letter 
from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that it is being 
made up piecemeal, in the most shockingly distressed dens 
of London, by poor, miserable white slaves, worse treated 
than the plantation slaves of America! 

"Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but 
simply gave the silk into the hands of a friend, and was 
in due time waited on in her own apartment by a very re- 
spectable-appearing woman, who offered to make the dress, 
and lo, this is the result! Since the publication of this 
piece, I have received earnest missives, from various parts 
of the country, begging me to interfere, hoping that I was 
not going to patronize the white slavery of England, and 
that I would employ my talents equally against oppression 
in every form. Could these people only know in what 
sweet simplicity I had been living in the State of Maine, 
where the only dressmaker of our circle was an intelligent, 
refined, well-educated woman who was considered as the 
equal of us all, and whose spring and fall ministrations to 
our wardrobe were regarded a double pleasure, — a friendly 
visit as well as a domestic assistance, — I say, could they 
know all this, they would see how guiltless I was in the 
matter. I verily never thought but that the nice, pleasant 
person who came to measure me for my silk dress was going 
to take it home and make it herself; it never occurred to 
me that she was the head of an establishment." 



200 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

May 22, she writes to her husband, whose duties had 
obliged him to return to America : " To-day we went to 
hear a sermon in behalf of the ragged schools by the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have been much 
saddened by the news which I received of the death of 
Mary Edmondson." 

"May 30. The next day from my last letter came off 
Miss Greenfield's concert, of which I send a card. You see 
in what company they have put your poor little wife. 
Funny! — isn't it? Well, the Hons. and Right Hons. all 
were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle. 

"After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton 
and me to come round to Stafford House and take tea, 
which was not a thing to be despised, either on account of 
the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time we never had, — 
present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady Caroline Campbell, 
Lady Hatherton, and myself. We had the nicest cup of 
tea, with such cream, and grapes and apricots, with some 
Italian bread, etc. 

" When we were going the duchess got me, on some pre- 
text, into another room, and came up and put her arms 
round me, with her noble face all full of feeling. 

" * Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last chapter 
in the "Key;" Argyll read it aloud to us. Oh, surely, 
surely, you will succeed, — God surely will bless you ! ' 

"I said then that I thanked her for all her love and 
feeling for us, told her how earnestly all the women of 
England sympathized with her, and many in America. 
She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those who 
hang back from our cause seen her face, it might have put 
a soul into them as she said again, ' It will be done — it 
will be done — oh, I trust and pray it may ! ' 

"So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and 
fidelity — so I came away. 

"To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. 



1853] PRESENTATION BY CHILDREN 201 

Paul's to see the charity children, after which lunch with 
Dean Milman. 

" May 31. We went to lunch with Miss K. at Oxford 
Terrace, where, among a number of distinguished guests, 
was Lady Byron, with whom I had a few moments of 
deeply interesting conversation. ISIo engravings that ever 
have been circulated in America do any justice to her ap- 
pearance. She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding 
delicacy, and her whole form, face, dress, and air unite to 
make an impression of a character singularly dignified, 
gentle, pure, and yet strong. No words addressed to me 
in any conversation hitherto have made their way to my 
inner soul with such force as a few remarks dropped by her 
on the present religious aspect of England, — remarks of 
such quality as one seldom hears. 

" We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away to 
the Continent. Charles wrote, a day or two since, to Mrs. 
C. at Paris to secure very private lodgings, and by no 
means let any one know that we were coming. She has 
replied, urging us to come to her house, and promising en- 
tire seclusion and rest. So, since you departed, we have 
been passing with a kind of comprehensive skip and jump 
over remaining engagements. And just the evening after 
you left came off the presentation of the inkstand by the 
ladies of Surrey Chapel. 

"It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen 
inches long, with a group of silver figures on it representing 
Religion, with the Bible in her hand, giving liberty to the 
slave. The slave is a masterly piece of work. He stands 
with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven, while a 
white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But 
the prettiest part of the scene was the presentation of a 
gold pen by a band of beautiful children, one of whom 
made a very pretty speech. I called the little things 
to come and stand around me, and talked with them a 



202 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

few minutes, and this was all the speaking that fell to my 
share, 

" To-morrow we go — go to quiet, to obscurity, to peace 
— to Paris, to Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest 
glen, and, as the Bible says, * fall on sleep. ' " 

"Monday, June 13. We went this morning to the 
studio of M. Belloc, who is to paint my portrait. The 
first question which he proposed, with a genuine French 
air, was the question of ' pose ' or position. It was con- 
cluded that, as other pictures had taken me looking at the 
spectator, this should take me looking away. M. Belloc 
remarked that M. Charpentier said I appeared always with 
the air of an observer, — was always looking around on 
everything. Hence M. Belloc would take me ' en observa- 
trice, mais pas en curieuse. ' 

" Saturday, June 25. Lyons to Geneve. As this was 
our first experience in the diligence line, we noticed partic- 
ularly every peculiarity. I had had the idea that a dili- 
gence was a rickety, slow-moulded, antediluvian nonde- 
script, toiling patiently along over impassable roads at a 
snail's pace. Judge of my astonishment at finding it a 
full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous railway 
momentum and imperturbable equipose of mind. Down 
the macadamized slopes we thundered at a prodigious pace ; 
up the hills we trotted, with six horses, three abreast; 
madly through the little towns we burst, like a whirlwind, 
crashing across the pebbled streets, and out upon the broad, 
smooth road again. Before we had well considered the 
fact that we were out of Lyons we stopped to change horses. 
Done in a jifFy ; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, 
bump, whir, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, 
another change and another. 

"As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm 
seemed gathering on the Jura. The rain dashed against 
the panes of the berlin as we rode past the grim-faced 



1853] SWITZERLAND 203 

monarch of the ' misty shroud. ' It was night as we drove 
into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with 
joy a voice demanding if this were MadaTne Besshare. I 
replied, not without some scruples of conscience, * Oui, 
Monsieur, c'est moi, ' though the name did not sound ex- 
actly like the one to which I had heen wont to respond. 
In half an hour we were at home in the mansion of Mon- 
sieur Fazy." 

Of their Swiss retreat her brother says : — 
"The people of the neighborhood, having discovered 
who Harriet was, were very kind, and full of delight at 
seeing her. It was Scotland over again. We have had 
to be unflinching to prevent her being overwhelmed, both 
in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of regard. 
To this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It 
was touching to listen to the talk of these secluded moun- 
taineers. The good hostess, even the servant-maids, hung 
about Harriet, expressing such tender interest for the slave. 
All had read ' Uncle Tom ; ' and it had apparently been an 
era in their life's monotony, for they said, ' Oh, madame, 
do write another! Remember, our winter nights here are 
very long ! ' 

"Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the salle a 
manger of the inn, where other voyagers are eating and 
drinking, and there is H. feeding on the green moonshine 
of an emerald ice cave. One would almost think her in- 
capable of fatigue. How she skips up and down high 
places and steep places, to the manifest perplexity of the 
honest guide Kienholz phre, who tries to take care of her, 
but does not exactly know how ! She gets on a pyramid 
of debris, which the edge of the glacier is ploughing and 
grinding up, sits down, and falls — not asleep exactly, but 
into a trance. W. and I are ready to go on: we shout; 
our voice is lost in the roar of the torrent. We send the 
guide. He goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does 



204 HAKEIET BEECHEE STOWE [1853 

not know exactly what to do. She hears him, and starts 
to her feet, pointing with one hand to yonder peak, and 
with the other to that knife-like edge that seems cleaving 
heaven with its keen and glistening scimitar of snow, re- 
minding one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, * For my sword is 
bathed in heaven.' She points at the grisly rocks, with 
their jags and spear-points. Evidently she is beside her- 
self, and thinks she can remember the names of those 
monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which cannot be 
named nor known but by sight, and then are known at 
once perfectly and forever." 

In the month of September Mrs. Stowe returned to 
America; "almost sadly," she writes, "as a child might 
leave its home, I left the shores of kind, strong old Eng- 
land — the mother of us all. " She hastened to throw her- 
self with renewed energy into work for the slaves. She had 
brought with her from England a good deal of money which 
had been given her for the purpose of pressing the anti- 
slavery cause. " She supported anti-slavery lectures wher- 
ever they were most needed, aided in establishing and main- 
taining anti-slavery publications, founded and assisted in 
supporting schools in which colored people might be taught 
how to avail themselves of the blessings of freedom. She 
arranged public meetings, and prepared many of the ad- 
dresses that should be delivered at them. She carried on 
such an extensive correspondence with persons of all shades 
of opinion in all parts of the world, that the letters received 
and answered by her between 1853 and 1856 would fill 
volumes. With all these multifarious interests, her chil- 
dren received a full share of her attention, nor were her 
literary activities relaxed." In addition to the volumes 
commemorating her enjoyment during the summer in Eng- 
land, she revised and enlarged her first book called "The 
May-Flower " in the following winter. 



CHAPTER VII 
portraiture: correspondence: second visit to 

EUROPE 

Mrs. Stowe said at the moment of her first triumphal 
tour through England: "The general topic of remark on 
meeting me seems to be, that I am not so bad-looking as 
they were afraid I was; and I do assure you when I have 
seen the things that are put up in the shop-windows here 
with my name under them, I have been lost in wondering 
admiration at the boundless loving-kindness of my English 
and Scottish friends in keeping up such a warm heart for 
such a Gorgon. I should think that the Sphinx in the 
London Museum might have sat for most of them. I am 
going to make a collection of these portraits to bring home 
to you. There is a great variety of them, and they will 
be useful, like the Irishman's guide-board, which showed 
where the road did not go." 

I remember once accompanying Mrs. Stowe to a recep- 
tion at a well-known house in Boston where before the even- 
ing was over the hostess drew me aside saying: "Why did 
you never tell me that Mrs. Stowe was beautiful 1 " and 
indeed when I observed her, in the full ardor of conver- 
sation, with her heightened color, her eyes shining and 
awake but filled with great softness, her abundant curling 
hair rippling naturally about her head and falling a little 
at the sides (as in the portrait by Richmond), I quite 
agreed with my hostess. Nor was that the first time her 
beauty had been revealed to me ; but she was seldom seen 



206 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

to be beautiful by the great world, and the pleasure of 
this recognition was very great to those who loved her. 

In personal appearance there was a strange similarity 
of character, not of likeness, between the three women of 
genius of that era, George Sand, George Eliot, and Mrs. 
Stowe. All three have been agreeably portrayed, while 
one of the pictures of Mrs. Stowe and one bust convey 
some idea of the beauty in her face. The similarity ap- 
peared when their minds were absorbed, or their spirits 
elsewhere; when they were sharing the daily round of life 
of which that other current of existence hardly took heed, 
although they wrought, and talked, and were present in 
the body, apparently, like those who surrounded them. 

At such times a strange heaviness, a lack-lustre visage, 
was common to the three, and the portraits taken in such 
moments (the photographs seem especially possessed by 
this demon of absence) are painful, untrue, plain sometimes 
beyond words. Their faces become almost like stone 
masks, not etherealized as in death, but weighted with the 
heavier tasks of life. 

The wonderful contrast produced by the reawakening in 
society when animated by conversation made them appear 
like different persons, and when true artists took these sub- 
jects in hand they presented them, of course, with the light 
of life in their faces. Nothing can be more striking than 
the contrast between certain photographs of George Sand 
and her portrait by Couture.-^ The same may be said also 
of the photographs of George Eliot and a charming draw- 
ing once made of her face in colored chalk. Mrs. Stowe's 
portrait by Richmond is not quite so close a likeness, but 
it resembles her much more nearly than those who have 
only known her photographs are willing to believe. The 

1 Of this portrait Gustave Flaubert says in a letter to George Sand 
" Celui que i'aime le mieux, c'est le dessin de Couture . . . moi, qui suis 
«n vie^ix romantique, je retrouve la 'la t§te de I'auteur ' qui m'a fait tant 
rever dans ma jeunesse." 



1853] PERSONAL APPEARANCE 207 

bust also, done by Miss Ihirant in the studio of Baron 
de Triqueti, has preserved this sweet living expression of 
her countenance. 1 Of this work Mrs. Stowe's daughter 
wrote : " I well remember going with my mother for her 
sittings at the studio. The dim light, the marble dust 
and chippings covering the floor, the clink, clink of the 
chisels, and Miss Durant, tall, handsome, and animated 
before the mound of clay which day by day grew into a 
resemblance to my mother, and the Baron de Triqueti 
coming and going with kindly smiling face and friendly 
words, and my gentle little mother smiling, happy, and 
unconscious as a child. It all comes back to me like a 
dream — those far away, pleasant, happy days. . . . The 
bust, after it was finished, was taken to London, where I 
saw it, and thought it very beautiful and an excellent like- 
ness of my mother at forty-six, — her age when it was 
taken." This bust was finally placed in the New York 
University, the gift of Dr. Wallace Wood. 

Upon this subject of her personal appearance one of 
her old friends says: "Mrs. Stowe's face, like that of all 
her mother's children, showed the delicate refinement of 
the Foote mask overlaid by the stronger and more sanguine 
Beecher integument. Her curling, crispy hair, more or less 
freeing itself from the velvet bands with which she was ac- 
customed to confine it, gave an informal grace to her head. 
Her eyes, whether twinkling with merriment or subdued 
to thoughtfulness, were always kind and pleasant. Her 
slender frame, with something of the ' Scholar's stoop ' of 
the shoulders, although so faithful a mother and house- 
keeper might claim other reasons besides study for that, 
was neatly but not stylishly dressed. Her manner was 
ever self-possessed, gentle, considerate; without the graces 
of one habituated to society, she was evidently a gentle- 
woman born and bred." 

1 A reproduction from the bust forms the frontispiece of this book. 



208 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 

Mrs. Stowe's first duty upon her return from this event- 
ful journey to Europe was to write to the friends she had 
left behind. She sent an open letter to Scotland, fearing, 
as she said, that her delicate health had made her a very 
unsatisfactory guest. She begins with an introduction re- 
ferring to her state of physical exhaustion after finishing 
the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" and continues: — 

The question will probably arise in your minds, Have 
the recent demonstrations in Great Britain done good to 
the Anti-slavery cause in America? 

The first result of those demonstrations, as might have 
been expected, was an intense reaction. Every kind of 
false, evil, and malignant report has been circulated by 
malicious and partisan papers; and if there is any blessing 
in having all manner of evil said against us falsely, we 
have seemed to be in a fair way to come in possession of it. 

The sanction which was given in this matter to the voice 
of the people, by the nobility of England and Scotland, 
has been regarded and treated with special rancor; and yet, 
in its place, it has been particularly important. Without 
it great advantages would have been taken to depreciate the 
value of the national testimony. The value of this testi- 
mony in particular will appear from the fact that the anti- 
slavery cause has been treated with especial contempt by 
the leaders of society in this country, and every attempt 
made to brand it with ridicule. 

The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable is 
much greater in this world than it ought to be. It oper- 
ates very powerfully with the young and impressible portion 
of the community; therefore Cassius M. Clay very well 
said with regard to the demonstration at Stafford House: 
"It will help our cause by rendering it fashionable." 

With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery cause 
in America, I think, for many reasons, that it has never 



1854] OPEN LETTER TO FKIENDS IN SCOTLAND 209 

been more encouraging. It is encouraging in this respect, 
that the subject is now fairly up for inquiry before the 
public mind, and that systematic effort which has been 
made for years to prevent its being discussed is proving 
wholly ineffectual. 

The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold exten- 
sively at the South, following in the wake of " Uncle Tom." 
Not one fact or statement in it has been disproved as yet. 
I have yet to learn of even an attempt to disprove. 

The "North American Eeview," a periodical which has 
never been favorable to the discussion of the slavery ques- 
tion, has come out with a review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
in which, while rating the book very low as a work of art, 
they account for its great circulation and success by the 
fact of its being a true picture of slavery. They go on 
to say that the system is one so inherently abominable 
that, unless slaveholders shall rouse themselves and abolish 
the principle of chattel ownership, they can no longer sus- 
tain themselves under the contempt and indignation of the 
whole civilized world. What are the slaveholders to do 
when this is the best their friends and supporters can say 
for them % 

I regret to say that the movements of Christian denomi- 
nations on this subject are yet greatly behind what they 
should be. Some movements have been made by religious 
bodies, of which I will not now speak; but as a general 
thing the professed Christian church is pushed up to its 
duty by the world, rather than the world urged on by the 
church. 

The colored people in this country are rapidly rising in 
every respect. I shall request Frederick Douglass to send 
you the printed account of the recent colored convention. 
It would do credit to any set of men whatever, and I hope 
you will get some notice taken of it in the papers of the 
United Kingdom. It is time that the slanders acrainst 



210 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1854 

this unhappy race should be refuted, and it should be seen 
how, in spite of every social and political oppression, they 
are rising in the scale of humanity. In my opinion they 
advance quite as fast as any of the foreign races which have 
found an asylum among us. 

Yours in all sympathy, H. B. Stowe. 

Almost simultaneously she sent broadcast an appeal to 
the women of America. The Kansas and Nebraska agita- 
tion was going on and she was in constant correspondence 
with Charles Sumner and others who could keep her in- 
formed as to the condition of the struggle. 

"I cannot believe," she wrote in her appeal, "that there 
is a woman so unchristian as to think it right to inflict 
upon her neighbor's child what she would consider worse 
than death Avere it inflicted upon her own. I do not be- 
lieve there is a wife who would think it right that her 
husband should be sold to a trader to be worked all his life 
without wages or a recognition of rights. I do not believe 
there is a husband who would consider it right that his 
wife should be regarded by law the property of another 
man. I do not believe there is a father or mother who 
would consider it right were they forbidden by law to teach 
their children to read. I do not believe there is a brother 
who would think it right to have his sister held as prop- 
erty, with no legal defense for her personal honor, by any 
man living. 

"The question is not now, Shall the wrongs of slavery 
exist as they have within their own territories, but Shall 
we permit them to be extended all over the free territories 
of the United States? Shall the woes and the miseries 
of slavery be extended over a region of fair, free, unoccu- 
pied territory nearly equal in extent to the whole of the 
free States? 



1854] LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 211 

"Women of the free States ! the question is not Shall we 
remonstrate with slavery on its own soil, but Are we willing 
to receive slavery into the free States and Territories of 
this Union ? Shall the whole power of these United States 
go into the hands of slavery? Shall every State in the 
Union be thrown open to slavery 1 This is the possible 
result and issue of the question now pending. This is the 
fearful crisis at which we stand. 

"And now you ask, What can the women of a country 
do? 

" women of the free States ! what did your brave mo- 
thers do in the days of our Revolution? Did not liberty 
in those days feel the strong impulse of woman's heart? 

"The first duty of every American woman at this time 
is to thoroughly understand the subject for herself and to 
feel that she is bound to use her influence for the right. 
Then they can obtain signatures to petitions to our national 
legislature. They can spread information upon this vital 
topic throughout their neighborhoods. They can employ 
lecturers to lay the subject before the people. They can 
circulate the speeches of their members of Congress that 
bear upon the subject, and in many other ways they can 
secure to all a full understanding of the present position of 
our country. 

"Above all, it seems to be necessary and desirable that 
we should make this subject a matter of earnest prayer. 
A conflict is now begun between the forces of liberty and 
despotism throughout the whole world. We who are 
Christians, and believe in the sure word of prophecy, know 
that fearful convulsions and overturnings are predicted be- 
fore the coming of Him who is to rule the earth in right- 
eovisness. How important, then, in this crisis, that all 
who believe in prayer should retreat beneath the shadow of 
the Almighty ! 



212 HAKKIET BEECHEK STOWE [1854 

"It is a melancholy but unavoidable result of such great 
encounters of princi})le that they tend to degenerate into 
sectional and personal bitterness. It is this liability that 
forms one of the most solemn and affecting features of the 
crisis now presented. We are on the eve of a conflict 
which will try men's souls, and strain to the utmost the 
bonds of brotherly union that bind this nation together. 

"For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake 
of our common country, for the sake of outraged and strug- 
gling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of 
America now do her duty." 

Beside these public letters she dispatched, of course, many 
private ones. To a lady in Scotland, Mrs. Wigham, she 
Avrites in October: "I hear that the pro-slavery papers 
have been busy in fabricating every strange, odd, improb- 
able combination of evil against me. When ' Uncle Tom ' 
came out first there was such a universal praising of it that 
I began to think ' Woe unto you when all men speak well 
of you. ' I have been quite relieved of my fears on that 
score; if there is any blessing in all manner of evil said 
falsely against one I am likely to have it. But these 
things I never read; they cannot change my friends; they 
cannot change the truth, and above all, they cannot change 
God. . . . Meanwhile let me say that every anti-slavery 
person and paper speaks in one way, that of hope. They 
say that they are greatly encouraged." 

A new series of difficulties for the anti-slavery cause 
now developed themselves. Mr. Garrison, being a friend 
of Theodore Parker and on the radical side of religious 
thought, gave Mrs. Stowe much uneasiness. "What I 
fear," she wrote him, "is that 'The Liberator' [of which 
Mr. Garrison was the brave editor] will take from poor 
Uncle Tom his Bible and give him nothing in its place." 

"Surely," replied Mr. Garrison, "you would not have 



1855] POSITION OF THE LIBERATOR 213 

me disloyal to my conscience. How do you prove that you 
are not trammeled by educational or traditional notions as 
to the entire sanctity of the Bible 1 " 

Mrs. Stowe replied : " I would not attack the faith of a 
heathen without being sure that I had a better one to put 
in its place, because such at it is, it is better than nothing. " 
The church took up the argument. Dr. Bacon and Dr. 
Kirk writing bravely on one side and Theodore Parker and 
Mr. Garrison on the other; Mrs. Stowe and her brothers 
adding their weight on the side of the old church. Hap- 
pily the great struggle against slavery united even those 
who differed upon the methods to be employed for the 
education of the negro, and they still stood side by side in 
brotherly love. 

In his " History of the United States from the Compro- 
mise of 1850 " Mr. James F. Rhodes gives a hint of the 
critical and dissenting spirit of this stormy period: — 

"The graphic pen of Harriet Beecher Stowe has given 
a description of Douglas as he appeared this winter, and 
she has vividly characterized his manner of argument. . . . 
The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and the society in 
which she moved, scorned Douglas. Her soul was bound 
up in the anti-slavery cause, and one might have expected 
from her a diatribe, only differing in force from those 
that other New England writers were publishing on every 
opportunity. But she was almost as much artist as aboli- 
tionist; and from the Senate gallery she looked upon the 
scene with the eye of an observer and student of character. 
In her description there is much of penetration. Serene 
as it is, one detects the striking impression made on the 
sensitive woman of genius by the man who was an intellec- 
tual giant." 

Mr. Khodes has reference to the Illinois senator, Stephen 
A. Douglas, whose course on the slavery question deserved 
all the reprobation it received. Of another and better 



214 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1855 

Douglass — Frederick, the eminent fugitive from slavery — 
we have a glimpse in the following letter to Mr. Garrison, 
touching the latter 's criticism of Douglass's course in ally- 
ing himself with the political abolitionists : — 

Cabin, December 19, 1853. 

Mr. GAERisoisr. 

Dear Sir, — After seeing you, I enjoyed the pleasure 
of a personal interview with Mr. Douglass, and I feel bound 
in justice to say that the impression was far more satis- 
factory than I had anticipated. 

There did not appear to be any deep underlying stratum 
of bitterness; he did not seem to me malignant or revenge- 
ful. I think it was only a temporary excitement and one 
which he will outgrow. 

I was much gratified with the growth and development 
both of his mind and heart. I am satisfied that his change 
of sentiment was not a mere political one but a genuine 
growth of his own conviction. A vigorous reflective mind 
like his cast among those who nourish these new senti- 
ments is naturally led to modified views. 

At all events, he holds no opinion which he cannot 
defend, with a variety of richness of thought and expression 
and an aptness of illustration which shoAvs it to be a growth 
from the soil of his oAvn mind with a living root, and not 
a twig broken ofi" other men's thoughts and stuck down to 
subserve a temporary purpose. 

His plans for the elevation of his own race are manly, 
sensible, comprehensive; he has evidently observed closely 
and thought deeply and will, I trust, act efficiently. 

You speak of him as an apostate. I cannot but regard 
this language as unjustly severe. Why is he any more to 
be called an apostate for having spoken ill-tempered things 
of former friends than they for having spoken severely and 
cruelly as they have of him ? Where is this work of ex- 



1855] JUSTICE TO DOUGLASS 215 

communication to end ? Is there but one true anti-slavery 
church and all others infidels ? Who shall declare which 
it is ? I feel bound to remonstrate with this — for the 
same reason that I do with slavery — because I think it an 
injustice. I must say still farther, that if the first allusion 
to his family concerns was unfortunate this last one is more 
unjustifiable still. I am utterly surprised at it. As a 
friend to you and to him, I view it with the deepest con- 
cern and regret. 

What Douglass is really, time will show. I trust that 
he will make no farther additions to the already unfortu- 
nate controversial literature of the cause. Silence in this 
case will be eminently — golden. 

I must indulge the hope you will see reason at some 
future time to alter your opinion and that what you now 
cast aside as worthless shall yet appear to be a treasure. 
There is abundant room in the anti-slavery field for him to 
perform a work without crossing the track or impeding the 
movements of his old friends, and perhaps in some future 
time, meeting each other from opposite quarters of a victo- 
rious field, you may yet shake hands together. 

I write this note, because in the conversation I had with 
you, and also with Miss Weston, I admitted so much that 
was unfavorable to Mr. Douglass that I felt bound in jus- 
tice to state the more favorable views which had arisen to 
my mind. 

Very sincerely your friend, H. B. Stowe. 

Again Mrs. Stowe set herself to the writing of a new 
book. In preparing the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" she 
had collected much fresh material which she proceeded to 
use for a story to be called "Dred." She was anxious to 
show the general eff"ect of slavery on society ; the demoraliza- 
tion of all classes, and the corruption of Christianity which 
follows in its trail. 



216 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

All the summer and winter were absorbed in her labors 
for this book, which is one of her finest pieces of Avork. 
Harriet Martineau said of it, that in her opinion it was a 
greater story than "Uncle Tom; " and other tributes to the 
same effect were paid to her in England. 

With the completion of her story, Mrs. Stowe again de- 
cided to find rest if possible, and certainly pleasure and di- 
version, in a second journey to Europe. 

She set sail about the first of August, accompanied by 
her husband, her two eldest daughters, her son Henry, and 
her sister, Mrs. Perkins. The secondary object of her 
journey (only secondary to her own health) was that of 
securing a copyright to her new book. She had failed in 
getting one on "Uncle Tom." Sampson Low & Company 
were her publishers, who looked after her interests with 
personal good will. 

Professor Stowe being obliged to return to his work in 
Andover after a brief absence, his wife wrote to him: "If 
' Dred ' has as good a sale in America as it is likely to 
have in England, we shall do well. There is such a 
demand that they had to placard the shop windows in 
Glasgow with, — 

' To prevent disappointment, 
"DRED" 
Not to be had till,' etc. 

"Everybody is after it, and the prospect is of an enor- 
mous sale. 

" God, to whom I prayed night and day while I was 
writing the book, has heard me, and given us of worldly 
goods more than I asked. I feel, therefore, a desire to 
' walk softly, ' and inquire, Por what has He so trusted us ? 

"Every day I am more charmed with the Duke and 
Duchess of Sutherland; they are simple-hearted, frank, 
natural, full of feeling, of piety, and good sense. They 
certainly are, apart from any considerations of rank or 



1856] DUKE AND DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND 217 

position, most interesting and noble people. The duke 
laughed heartily at many things I told him of our Andover 
theological tactics, of your preaching, etc. ; but I think he 
is a sincere, earnest Christian. 

" Our American politics form the daily topic of interest. 
The late movements in Congress are discussed with great 
warmth, and every morning the papers are watched for 
new details. 

"I must stop now, as it is late and we are to leave here 
early to-morrow morning. We are going to Staff a, lona, 
the Pass of Glencoe, and finally through the Caledonian 
Canal up to Dunrobin Castle, where a large party of all 
sorts of interesting people are gathered around the Duchess 
of Sutherland. Affectionately yours, Harriet." 

At Dunrobin, Mrs. Stowe found awaiting her the fol- 
lowing note from her friend. Lady Byron: — 

London, September 10, 1856. 
Your book, dear Mrs. Stowe, is of the "little leaven" 
kind, and must prove a great moral force, — perhaps not 
manifestly so much as secretly, and yet I can hardly con- 
ceive so much power without immediate and sensible 
effects; only there will be a strong disposition to resist on 
the part of all the hollow-hearted professors of religion, 
whose heathenisms you so unsparingly expose. They 
have a class feeling like others. To the young, and to 
those who do not reflect much on what is offered to their 
belief, you will do great good by showing how spiritual 
food is adulterated. The Bread from Heaven is in the 
same case as baker's bread. I feel that one perusal is not 
enough. It is a "mine," to use your own simile. If 
there is truth in what I heard Lord Byron say, that 
works of fiction lived only by the amount of truth which 
they contained, your story is sure of long life. . . . 



218 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

I know now, more than before, how to value communion 
with you. 

With kind regards to your family, 

Yours affectionately, A. T. Noel Byron. 

From this pleasant abiding-place Mrs. Stowe writes to 
her husband : — 

DuNEOBiN Castle, September 15. 

My dear Husband, — Everything here is like a fairy 
story. The place is beautiful. It is the most perfect 
combination of architectural and poetic romance with 
home comfort. The people, too, are charming. We have 
here Mr. Labouchere, a cabinet minister, and Lady Mary 
his wife, — I like him very much, and her, too, — Kings- 
ley's brother, a very entertaining man, and to-morrow Lord 
EUsmere is expected. I wish you could be here, for I am 
sure you would like it. Life is so quiet and sincere and 
friendly, that you would feel more as if you had come at 
the hearts of these people than in London. 

The Sutherland estate looks like a garden. We stopped 
at the town of Frain, four miles before we reached Suther- 
landshire, where a crowd of well-to-do, nice-looking people 
gathered around the carriage, and as we drove off gave 
three cheers. This was better than I expected, and looks 
well for their opinion of my views. 

" Dred " is selling over here wonderfully. Low says, 
with all the means at his command, he has not been able 
to meet the demand. He sold fifty thousand in two weeks, 
and probably will sell as many more. 

I am showered with letters, private and printed, in 
which the only difficulty is to know what the writers 
would be at. I see evidently happiness and prosperity all 
through the line of this estate. I see the duke giving his 
thought and time, and spending the whole income of this 



1856] DUNROBIN CASTLE 219 

estate in improvements upon it. I see the duke and duch- 
ess evidently beloved wherever they move. I see them 
most amiable, most Christian, most considerate to every- 
body. The "writers of the letters admit the goodness of the 
duke, but denounce the sjstem, and beg me to observe its 
effects for myself. I do observe that, compared with any 
other part of the Highlands, Sutherland is a garden. I 
observe well-clothed people, thriving lands, healthy chil- 
dren, fine school-houses, and all that. 

Henry was invited to the tenants' dinner, where he ex- 
cited much amusement by pledging every toast in fair 
water, as he has done invariably on all occasions since he 
has been here. 

The duchess, last night, showed me her copy of "Dred," 
in which she has marked what most struck or pleased her. 
I begged it, and am going to send it to you. She said to 
me this morning at breakfast, "The Queen says that she 
began ' Dred ' the very minute she got it, and is deeply 
interested in it." 

She bought a copy of Lowell's poems, and begged me to 
mark the best ones for her; so if you see him, tell him 
that we have been reading him together. She is, taking 
her all in all, one of the noblest-appointed women I ever 
saw; real old genuine English, such as one reads of in 
history ; full of nobility, courage, tenderness, and zeal. It 
does me good to hear her read prayers daily, as she does, 
in the midst of her servants and guests, with a manner full 
of grand and noble feeling. 

Mrs. Stowe wrote to her friend, Mrs. Howard, at twelve 
o'clock at night: — 

"Dear Susy, — ... The people here are such as 
Henry " [Mr. Beecher] " would be delighted to know, and 
how glad they would be to see him. The duchess since I 



220 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

saw her has passed through a great sorrow in the loss of her 
son, and it seems to have only widened her heart and filled 
it with a deeper feeling for all suffering humanity. The 
news from America is eagerly watched by them, and the 
Duchess said: 'I only wish Fremont could be elected 
while you are here. I would have the castle illuminated. ' 
You have no idea of the feelings of good people here about 
America. They say it is a ship freighted with the world's 
future ; and they watch its struggle in the breakers with 
the deepest emotion. The old duke has been perfectly 
delighted with the hymns quoted in 'Dred,' and asked 
me where he could find such hymns. I have promised 
him a Plymouth hymn-book as soon as I can get one from 
America. He is unfortunately quite deaf, and being thus 
precluded from society spends all his time doing good. 
His estate has been changed from a desert to a garden. 
He has been to-day showing me his improvements. . . . 
When one sees money and station employed in this way, 
in raising up and educating a country, it seems something 
worth having. Susy dear, my paper and brain give out; 
but not my heart, which loves you all just as ever." 

She continues in her journal to her husband: "Thursday 
Morning, September 25. We were obliged to get up at 
half past five the morning we left Dunrobin, an effort when 
one does n't go to bed till one o'clock. We found break- 
fast laid for us in the library, and before we had quite 
finished the duchess came in. Our starting off was quite 
an imposing sight. First came the duke's landau, in which 
were Mary, the duke, and myself; then a carriage in which 
were Eliza and Hatty, and finally the carriage which we 
had hired, with Henry, our baggage, and Mr. Jackson (the 
duke's secretary). The gardener sent a fresh bouquet for 
each of us, and there was such a leave-taking, as if we were 
old and dear friends. We did really love them, and had 
no doubt of their love for us. 



A 



1856] SUCCESS OF DEED 221 

"The duke rode with us as far as Dornach, where he 
showed us the cathedral beneath which his ancestors are 
buried, and where is a statue of his father, similar to one 
the tenants have erected on top of the highest hill in the 
neighborhood. 

"We also saw the prison, which had but two inmates, 
and the old castle. Here the duke took leave of us, and 
taking our own carriage, we crossed the ferry and contin- 
ued on our way. After a very bad night's rest at Inver- 
ness, in consequence of the town's being so full of people 
attending some Highland games that we could have no 
places at the hotel, and after a weary ride in the rain, we 
came into Aberdeen Friday night. 

" To-morrow we go on to Edinburgh, where I hope to 
meet a letter from you. The last I heard from Low, he 
had sold sixty thousand of ' Dred, ' and it was still selling 
well. I have not yet heard from America how it goes. 
The critics scold, and whiffle, and dispute about it, but on 
the whole it is a success, so the ' Times ' says, with much 
coughing, hemming, and standing first on one foot and 
then on the other. If the ' Times ' were sure we should 
beat in the next election, * Dred ' would go up in the scale; 
but as long as there is that uncertainty, it has first one line 
of praise, and then one of blame." 

Henry Stowe returned to America in October, says the 
Rev. C. E. Stowe, to whom I am indebted for this se- 
quence, to enter Dartmouth College, while the rest of the 
party pursued their way southward, as will be seen by the 
following letters: — 

City of York, October 10. 
Dear Husband, — Henry will tell you all about our 
journey, and at present I have but little time for details. 
I received your first letter with great joy, relief, and 



222 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

gratitude, first to God for restoring your health and 
strength, and then to you, for so good, long, and refresh- 
ing a letter. 

Henry, I hope, comes home with a serious determination 
to do well and he a comfort. Seldom has a young man 
seen what he has in this journey, or made more valuable 
friends. 

Since we left Aberdeen, from which place my last was 
mailed, we have visited in Edinburgh with abounding de- 
light ; thence yesterday to Newcastle. Last night attended 
service in Durham Cathedral, and after that came to York, 
whence we send Henry to Liverpool. 

I send you letters, etc. , by him. One hundred thousand 
copies of " Dred " sold in four weeks ! After that who 
cares what critics say ? Its success in England has been 
complete, so far as sale is concerned. It is very bitterly 
attacked, both from a literary and a religious point of view. 
The " Record " is down upon it with a cartload of solem- 
nity; the "Athenaeum" with waspish spite; the "Edin- 
burgh " goes out of its way to say that the author knows 
nothing of the society she describes; but yet it goes every- 
where, is read everywhere, and Mr. Low says that he puts 
the hundred and twenty-fifth thousand to press confidently. 
The fact that so many good judges like it better than 
" Uncle Tom " is success enough. 

In my journal to Henry, which you may look for next 
week, you will learn how I have been very near the Queen, 
and formed acquaintance with divers of her lords and ladies, 
and heard all she has said about " Dred ; " how she prefers 
it to " Uncle Tom, " how she inquired for you, and other 
matters. 

Till then, I am, as ever, your affectionate wife, 

H. B. Stowe. 



1856] CORKESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYKON 223 

Upon Mrs. Stowe's return to London she found a letter 
from Lady Byron, who wrote : — 

Oxford House, October 15. 

Deak Mrs. Stowe, — The newspapers represent you 
as returning to London, but I cannot wait for the chance, 
slender I fear, of seeing you there, for I wish to consult 
you on a point admitting but of little delay. Feeling that 
the sufferers in Kansas have a claim not only to sympathy, 
but to the expression of it, I wish to send them a dona- 
tion. It is, however, necessary to know what is the best 
application of money and what the safest channel. Pre- 
suming that you will approve the object, I ask you to tell 
me. Perhaps you would undertake the transmission of my 
£50. My present residence, two miles beyond Richmond, 
is opposite. I have watched for instructions of your course 
with warm interest. The sale of your book will go on in- 
creasing. It is beginning to be understood. 

Believe me, with kind regards to your daughters. 

Your faithful and affectionate A. T. Noel Byron. 

To this note the following answer was promptly re- 
turned : — 

Gkoye Terrace, Kentish Town, October 16. 

Dear Lady Byron, — How glad I was to see your 
handwriting once more! how more than glad I should be 
to see you ! I do long to see you. I have so much to 
say, — so much to ask, and need to be refreshed with a 
sense of a congenial and sympathetic soul. 

Thank you, my dear friend, for your sympathy with our 
poor sufferers in Kansas. May God bless you for it ! By 
doing this you will step to my side; perhaps you may 
share something of that abuse which they who "know not 
what they do " heap upon all who so feel for the right. I 



224 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

assure you, dear friend, I ana 7iot insensible to the fiery- 
darts which, thus fly around me. 

One of the very pleasant experiences during this second 
journey to England was a visit to Lady Mary and Mr. La- 
bouchere at Stoke Park. At the last moment the family 
luggage was detained, and all the party were prevented from 
going except Mrs. Stowe herself, who by chance had left 
certain dresses in London. 

"I arrived alone," she wrote, "at the Slough Station, and 
found Lady Mary's carriage waiting. Away we drove 
through a beautiful park full of deer, who were so tame as 
to stand and look at us as we passed. The house is in the 
Italian style, with a dome on top, and wide terraces with 
stone balustrades around it. 

"Lady Mary met me at the door, and seemed quite con- 
cerned to learn of our ill-fortune. We went through a 
splendid suite of rooms to a drawing-room, where a little 
tea-table was standing. 

"After tea Lady Mary showed me my room. It had 
that delightful, homelike air of repose and comfort they 
succeed so well in giving to rooms here. There was a 
cheerful fire burning, an arm-chair drawn up beside it, a 
sofa on the other side with a neatly arranged sofa-table on 
which were writing materials. One of the little girls had 
put a pot of pretty greenhouse moss in a silver basket on 
this table, and my toilet cushion was made with a place in 
the centre to hold a little vase of flowers. Here Lady 
Mary left me to rest before dressing for dinner. I sat 
down in an easy-chair before the fire, and formed hospi- 
table resolutions as to how I would try to make rooms 
always look homelike and pleasant to tired guests. Then 
came the maid to know if I wanted hot water, — if I 
wanted anything, — and by and by it was time for dinner. 
Going down into the parlor I met Mr. Labouchere, and we 



1856] VISIT AT STOKE PARK 225 

all went in to dinner. It was not quite as large a party as 
at Dunrobin, but much in the same way. No company, 
but several ladies who were all family connections. 

" The following morning Lord Dufferin and Lord Alfred 
Paget, two gentlemen of the Queen's household, rode over 
from Windsor to lunch with us. They brought news of 
the goings-on there. Do you remember one night the 
Duchess of S. read us a letter from Lady Dufferin, describ- 
ing the exploits of her son, who went yachting with Prince 
Napoleon up by Spitzbergen, and when Prince Napoleon 
and all the rest gave up and went back, still persevered 
and discovered a new island? Well, this was the same 
man. A thin, slender person, not at all the man you 
would fancy as a Mr. Great Heart, — ^ively, cheery, and 
conversational. 

"Lord Alfred is also very pleasant. 

"Lady Mary prevailed on Lord Dufferin to stay and 
drive with us after lunch, and we went over to Clifden, the 
duchess's villa, of which we saw the photograph at Dun- 
robin. For grace and beauty some of the rooms in this 
place exceed any I have yet seen in England. 

"When we came back my first thought was whether 
Aunt Mary and the girls had come. Just as we were all 
going up to dress for dinner they appeared. Meanwhile, 
the Queen had sent over from Windsor for Lady Mary and 
her husband to dine with her that evening, and such in- 
vitations are understood as commands. 

" So, although they themselves had invited four or five 
people to dinner, they had to go and leave us to entertain 
ourselves. Lady Mary was dressed very prettily in a 
flounced white silk dress with a pattern of roses woven 
round the bottom of each flounce, and looked very elegant. 
Mr. Labouchere wore breeches, with knee and shoe buckles 
sparkling with diamonds. 

"They got home soon after we had left the drawing- 



226 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

room, as the Queen always retires at eleven. No late hours 
for her. 

"The next day Lady Mary told me that the Queen had 
talked to her all about ' Dred, ' and how she preferred it to 
'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' how interested she was in Nina, 
how provoked when she died, and how she was angry that 
something dreadful did not happen to Tom Gordon. She 
inquired for papa, and the rest of the family, all of whom 
she seemed to be well informed about. 

"The next morning we had Lord Dufferin again to 
breakfast. He is one of the most entertaining young men 
I have seen in England, full of real thought and noble 
feeling, and has a wide range of reading. He had read all 
our American literature, and was very flattering in his re- 
marks on Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow. I find J. E,. 
Lowell less known, however, than he deserves to be. 

"Lord Dufferin says that his mother wrote him some 
verses on his coming of age, and that he built a tower for 
them and inscribed them on a brass plate. I recommend 
the example to you, Henry; make yourself the tower and 
your memory the brass plate. 

" This morning came also, to call, Lady Augusta Bruce, 
Lord Elgin's daughter, one of the Duchess of Kent's 
ladies-in-waiting; a very excellent, sensible girl, who is a 
strong anti-slavery body. 

"After lunch we drove over to Eton, and went in to see 
the provost's house. After this, as we were passing by 
Windsor the coachman suddenly stopped and said, ' The 
Queen is coming, my lady. ' We stood still and the royal 
cortege passed. I only saw the Queen, who bowed gra- 
ciously. 

"Lady Mary stayed at our car door till it left the sta- 
tion, and handed in a beautiful bouquet as we parted. 
This is one of the loveliest visits I have made." 

After filling a number of other pleasant engagements in 



1856] CHAELES KINGSLEY 227 

England, among which was a visit to Charles Kingsley and 
his family, Mrs. Stowe and her party crossed the Channel. 
She settled down for some months in Paris for the express 
purpose of studying French. From the French capital she 
writes to her husband in Andover as follows : — 

Paris, November 7. 

Mt dear Husband, — On the 28th, when your last 
was written, I was at Charles Kingsley 's. It seemed odd 
enough to Mary and me to find ourselves, long after dark, 
alone in a hack, driving towards the house of a man whom 
we never had seen (nor his wife either). 

My heart fluttered as, after rumbling a long way through 
the dark, we turned into a yard. Wc knocked at a door 
and were met in the hall by a man who stammers a little 
in his speech, and whose inquiry, "Is this Mrs. Stowe?" 
was our first positive introduction. Ushered into a large, 
pleasant parlor lighted by a coal fire, which flickered on 
comfortable chairs, lounges, pictures, statuettes, and book- 
cases, we took a good view of him. He is tall, slender, 
with blue eyes, brown hair, and a hale, well-browned face, 
and somewhat loose-jointed withal. His wife is a real 
Spanish beauty. 

How we did talk and go on for three days ! I guess he 
is tired. I 'm sure we were. He is a nervous, excitable 
being, and talks with head, shoulders, arms, and hands, 
while his hesitance makes it the harder. Of his theology 
I will say more some other time. He, also, has been 
through the great distress, the "Conflict of Ages," but has 
come out at a different end from Edward, and stands with 
John Foster, though with more positiveness than he. 

He laughed a good deal at many stories I told him of 
father, and seemed delighted to hear about him. But he 
is, what I did not expect, a zealous Churchman; insists 
that the Church of England is the finest and broadest 



228 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 

platform a man can stand on, and that the thirty-nine arti- 
cles are the only ones he could subscribe to. I told him 
you thought them the best summary (of doctrine) you 
knew, which pleased him greatly. 

In writing from Paris, Mrs. Stowe tells her husband : — 

" As usual, my horrid pictures do me a service, and people 
seem relieved when they see me; think me even handsome 
' in a manner. ' Kingsley, in his relief, expressed as much 
to his wife, and as beauty has never been one of my strong 
points I am open to flattery upon it, 

" We had a most agreeable call from Arthur Helps before 
we left London. He, Kingsley, and all the good people 
are full of the deepest anxiety for our American affairs. 
They really do feel very deeply, seeing the peril so much 
plainer than we do in America. 

"November 30. This is Siinday evening, and a Sunday 
in Paris always puts me in mind of your story about some- 
body who said, ' Bless you ! they make such a noise that 
the Devil could n't meditate.' All the extra Avork and 
odd jobs of life are put into Sunday. Your washerwoman 
comes Sunday, with her innocent, good-humored face, and 
would be infinitely at a loss to know why she shouldn't. 
Your bonnet, cloak, shoes, and everything are sent home 
Sunday morning, and all the way to church there is such 
whirligiging and pirouetting along the boulevards as almost 
takes one's breath away. To-day we went to the Oratoire 
to hear M. Grand Pierre. I could not understand much ; 
my French ear is not quick enough to follow. I could 
only perceive that the subject was 'La Charite, ' and that 
the speaker was fluent, graceful, and earnest, the audience 
serious and attentive. 

"Last night we were at Baron de Triqueti's again, with 
a party invited to celebrate the birthday of their eldest 
daughter, Blanche, a lovely girl of nineteen. There were 



1856] PAKIS 229 

some good ladies there who had come eighty leagues to 
meet me, and who were so delighted with my miserable 
French that it was quite encouraging. I believe I am get- 
ting over the sandbar at last, and conversation is beginning 
to come easy to me. 

"There Avere three French gentlemen who had just been 
reading * Dred ' in English, and who were as excited and 
full of it as could be, and I talked with them to a degree 
that astonished myself. There is a review of * Dred ' in 
the * Revue des Deux Mondes ' which has long extracts 
from the book, and is written in a very appreciative and 
favorable spirit. Generally speaking, French critics seem 
to have a finer appreciation of my subtle shades of meaning 
than English. I am curious to hear what Professor Park 
has to say about it. There has been another review in 
' La Presse ' equally favorable. All seem to see the truth 
about American slavery much plainer than people can who 
are in it. If American ministers and Christians could see 
through their sophistical spider-webs, with what wonder, 
pity, and contempt they would regard their own vacillating 
condition ! 

"We visit once a week at Madame Mohl's, where we meet 
all sorts of agreeable people. Lady Elgin doesn't go into 
society now, having been struck with paralysis, but sits at 
home and receives her friends as usual. This notion of 
sitting always in the open air is one of her peculiarities. 

"I must say, life in Paris is arranged more sensibly than 
with us. Visiting involves no trouble in the feeding line. 
People don't go to eat. A cup of tea and plate of biscuit 
is all, — just enough to break up the stiffness. 

" It is wonderful that the people here do not seem to have 
got over ' Uncle Tom ' a bit. The impression seems fresh 
as if just published. How often have they said. That book 
has revived the Gospel among the poor of France; it has 
done more than all the books we have published put to- 



230 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [185T 

gether. It has gone among les ouvriers, among the poor 
of Faubourg St. Antoine, and nobody knows how many 
have been led to Christ by it. Is not this blessed, my 
dear husband 1 Is it not worth all the suffering of writ- 
ing it? 

"January 25, Paris. Here is a story for Charley. The 
boys in the Faubourg St. Antoine are the children of ouvri- 
ers, and every day their mothers give them two sous to buy 
a luncheon. When they heard I was coming to the school, 
of their own accord they subscribed half their luncheon 
money to give to me for the poor slaves. This five-franc 
piece I have now; I have bought it of the cause for five 
dollars, and am going to make a hole in it and hang it 
round Charley's neck as a medal. 

"I have just completed arrangements for leaving the girls 
at a Protestant boarding-school, while I go to Rome. 

"We expect to start the 1st of February," 

The party did not reach Rome without accident. The 
steamer ran ashore and broke a paddle wheel, and the mis- 
erable carriage which came to convey them from Civita 
Vecchia broke down also, but after every possible misad- 
venture of travel, which she and her sister, Mrs. Perkins, 
bore with cheerfulness, they found a spot to rest their weary 
heads in the Eternal City. 

It seemed at first as if they must pass the night in the 
streets, every hotel being too crowded to receive them. 
The next day they learned that a friend had been watching 
the " diligence " office for over a week and that delightful 
apartments were waiting for them into which they moved 
the following day with all possible expedition. 

"One sees everybody here at Rome," she wrote pres- 
ently, — "John Bright, Mrs. Hemans' son, Mrs. Gaskell, 
etc., etc. Over five thousand English travelers are said to 
be here. Jacob Abbot and wife are coming. Rome is a 
world ! Rome is an astonishment ! Papal Rome is an en- 
chantress ! " 



1857] ROME, NAPLES, VENICE 231 

From Naples she wrote to Professor Stowe : — 

"The whole place recalled to my mind so vividly Mil- 
ton's description of the infernal regions, that I could not 
but believe that he had drawn the imagery from this source. 
Milton, as we all know, was some time in Italy, and, 
although I do not recollect any account of his visiting 
Vesuvius, I cannot think how he should have shaped 
his language so coincidently to the phenomena if he had 
not. 

" On the way down the mountain our ladies astonished 
the natives by making an express stipulation that our 
donkeys were not to be beaten, — why, they could npt 
conjecture. The idea of any feeling of compassion for an 
animal is so foreign to a Neapolitan's thoughts that they 
supposed it must be some want of courage on our part. 
When, once in a while, the old habit so prevailed that the 
boy felt that he must strike the donkey, and when I for- 
bade him, he would say, ' Courage, signora, courage. ' " 

Of Venice she says : — 

" The great trouble of traveling in Europe, or indeed of 
traveling anywhere, is that you can never catch romance. 
No sooner are you in any place than being there seems the 
most natural, matter-of-fact occurrence in the world. No- 
thing looks foreign or strange to you. You take your tea 
and your dinner, eat, drink, and sleep as aforetime, and 
scarcely realize where you are or what you are seeing. 
But Venice is an exception to this state of things ; it is all 
romance from beginning to end, and never ceases to seem 
strange and picturesque." 

Mrs. Stowe returned to Rome for Holy Week. The 
ceremonies filled her heart with awe. 

"Whatever dispute there may be about the other com- 
memorative feasts of Christendom, the time of this epoch is 
fixed unerringly by the Jews' Passover. That great and 
solemn feast, therefore, stands as an historical monument 



232 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

to mark the date of the most important and thrilling events 
which this world ever witnessed." 

As the spring approached Mrs. Stowe turned her face 
homeward. In Paris, she made up her mind to leave her 
daughters a few months longer at the excellent school 
where they had made good progress. She writes to her 
husband : — 

"I have some business affairs to settle in England, and 
shall sail from Liverpool in the Europa on the sixth of 
June. I am so homesick to-day, and long with a great 
longing to be with you once more. I am impatient to go, 
and yet dread the voyage. Still, to reach you I must 
commit myself once more to the ocean, of which at times 
I have a nervous horror, as to the arms of my Father. 
' The sea is his, and He made it. ' It is a rude, noisy old 
servant, but it is always obedient to his will, and cannot 
carry me beyond his power and love, wherever or to what- 
ever it bears me." 

Upon her arrival in London she received a characteristic 
letter from Harriet Martineau, who says : — 

Ambleside, June 1. 

Dear Mrs. Stowe, — I have been at my wits' end to 
learn how to reach you, as your note bore no direction 
but "London." Arnolds, Croppers, and others could give 
no light, and the newspapers tell only where you had been. 
So I commit this to your publishers, trusting that it will 
find you somewhere, and in time, perhaps, bring you here. 
Can't you come? You are aware that we shall never meet 
if you don't come soon. I see no strangers at all, but I 
hope to have breath and strength enough for a little talk 
with you, if you could come. You could have perfect free- 
dom at the times when I am laid up, and we could seize 
my "capability seasons" for our talk. 

The weather and scenery are usually splendid just now. 



1857] LETTER FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU 233 

Did I see you (in white frock and black silk apron) when 
I was in Ohio in 1835 ? Your sister I knew well, and I 
have a clear recollection of your father. I believe and 
hope you were the young lady in the black silk apron. 

Do you know I rather dreaded reading your book ! Sick 
people are weak: and one of my chief weaknesses is dis- 
like of novels (except some old ones which I almost 
know by heart). I knew that with you I should be safe 
from the cobweb-spinning of our modern subjective novel- 
ists and the jaunty vulgarity of our "funny philosophers " 
— the Dickens sort, who have tired us out. But I 
dreaded the alternative, — the too strong interest. But 
oh! the delight I have had in "Dred"! The genius car- 
ries all before it, and drowns everything in glorious plea- 
sure. So marked a work of genius claims exemption 
from every sort of comparison ; but, as you ask for 
my opinion of the book, you may like to know that I 
think it far superior to "Uncle Tom." I have no doubt 
that a multitude of people will say it is a falling oflf, because 
they made up their minds that any new book of yours must 
be inferior to that, and because it is so rare a thing for a 
prodigious fame to be sustained by a second book; but in 
my own mind I am entirely convinced that the second book 
is by far the best. Such faults as you have are in the 
artistic department, and there is less defect in " Dred " 
than in "Uncle Tom," and the whole material and treat- 
ment seem to me richer and more substantial. I have had 
critiques of "Dred" from the two very wisest people I 
know, — perfectly unlike each other (the critics, I mean), 
and they delight me by thinking exactly like each other 
and like me. They distinctly prefer it to "Uncle Tom." 
To say the plain truth, it seems to me so splendid a work 
of genius that nothing that I can say can give you an idea 
of the intensity of admiration with which I read it. It 
seemed to me, as I told my nieces, that our English fiction 



234 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

writers had better shut up altogether and have done with 
it, for one will have no patience with any but didactic 
writing after yours. My nieces (and you may have heard 
that Maria, my nurse, is very, very clever) are thoroughly 
possessed with the book, and Maria says she feels as if a 
fresh department of human life had been opened to her 
since this day week. I feel the freshness no less, while, 
from my travels, I can be even more assured of the truth- 
fulness of your wonderful representation. I see no limit 
to the good it may do by suddenly splitting open Southern 
life, for everybody to look into. It is precisely the thing 
that is most wanted, — just as "Uncle Tom" was wanted, 
three years since, to show what negro slavery in your re- 
public was like. It is plantation-life, particularly in the 
present case, that I mean. As for your exposure of the 
weakness and helplessness of the churches, I deeply honor 
you for the courage with which you have made the expo- 
sure; but I don't suppose that any amendment is to be 
looked for in that direction. You have unburdened your 
own soul in that matter, and if they had been corrigible, 
you would have helped a good many more. But I don't 
expect that result. The Southern railing at you will be 
something unequaled, I suppose. I hear that three of us 
have the honor of being abused from day to day already, as 
most portentous and shocking women, you, Mrs. Chapman, 
and myself (as the traveler of twenty years ago). Not 
only newspapers, bvit pamphlets of such denunciation are 
circulated, I 'm told. I 'm afraid now I, and even Mrs. 
Chapman, must lose our fame, and all the railing will be 
engrossed by you. My little function is to keep English 
people tolerably right, by means of a London daily paper, 
while the danger of misinformation and misreading from 
the "Times" continues. I can't conceive how such a 
paper as the " Times " can fail to be better informed than 
it is. At times it seems as if its New York correspondent 



1857] MKS. GASKELL: MK. EUSKIN 235 

was making game of it. The able and excellent editor of 
the "Daily News" gives me complete liberty on American 
subjects, and Mrs. Chapman's and other friends' constant 
supply of information enables me to use this liberty for 
making the cause better understood. I hope I shall hear 
that you are coming. It is like a great impertinence — my 
having written so freely about your book ; but you asked 
my opinion, — that is all I can say. Thank you much for 
sending the book to me. If you come you will write our 
names in it, and this will make it a valuable legacy to a 
nephew or niece. 

Believe me gratefully and affectionately yours, 

Harkiet Martineau. 

At Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for home, 
Mrs. Stowe dispatched a note to her daughters in Paris, 
telling them of her latest experiences. 

"I spent the day before leaving London with Lady 
Byron. She is lovelier than ever, and inquired kindly 
about you both. I left London to go to Manchester, and 
reaching there found the Eev. Mr. Gaskell waiting to wel- 
come me in the station. Mrs. Gaskell seems lovely at 
home, where besides being a writer she proves herself to 
be a first-class housekeeper, and performs all the duties of 
a minister's wife. After spending a delightful day with 
her I came here to the beautiful 'Dingle,' which is more 
enchanting than ever. I am staying with Mrs. Edward 
Cropper, Lord Denman's daughter. 

"I want you to tell Aunt Mary that Mr. Ruskin lives 
with his father at a place called Denmark Hill, Camber- 
well. He has told me that the gallery of Turner pictures 
there is open to me or my friends at any time of the day or 
night. Both young and old Mr. Ruskin are fine fellows, 
sociable and hearty, and will cordially welcome any of my 
friends who desire to look at their pictures. 



236 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

"I write in haste, as I must be aboard the ship to- 
morrow at eight o'clock. So good- by, my dear girls, from 
your ever affectionate mother." 

Her last letter written before sailing was to Lady Byron, 
and serves to show how warm an intimacy had sprung up 
between them. It was as follows : — 

June 5. 

Deak Friend, — I left you with a strange sort of 
yearning, throbbing feeling; you make me feel quite as I 
did years ago, a sort of girlishness quite odd for me. I 
have felt a strange longing to send you something. Don't 
smile when you see what it turns out to be. I have a 
weakness for your pretty Parian things; it is one of my 
own home peculiarities to have strong passions for pretty 
tea-cups and other little matters for my own quiet meals, 
when, as often happens, I am too unwell to join the fam- 
ily. So I send you a cup made of primroses, a funny 
little pitcher, quite large enough for cream, and a little 
vase for violets and primroses, — which will be lovely to- 
gether; and when you use it think of me and that I love 
you more than I can say. 

I often think how strange it is that I should know you 
— you who were a sort of legend of my early days ; that 
I should love you is only a natural result. You seem to 
me to stand on the confines of that land where the poor 
formalities which separate hearts here pass like mist before 
the sun, and therefore it is that I feel the language of love 
must not startle you as strange or unfamiliar. You are so 
nearly there in spirit that I fear with every adieu that it 
may be the last; yet did you pass within the veil I should 
not feel you lost. 

I have got past the time when I feel that my heavenly 
friends are lost by going there. I feel them nearer, rather 
than farther off. 



1857] FAEEWELL TO LADY BYKON 237 

So good-by, dear, dear friend, and if you see morning in 
our Father's house before I do, carry my love to those that 
wait for me, and if I pass first, you will find me there, and 
we shall love each other forever. 
Ever yours, 

H. B. Stowe. 



CHAPTER VIII 

bereavement: third AKD last visit to EUROPE 

Mrs. Stowe left England full of renewed health, of joy 
in her larger love and larger faith, of comfort in knowing 
that those nearest to her were able to enjoy life by the rich 
reward, as she considered it, obtained through her books, 
and above all, that she was evidently a means by which 
freedom to the slaves would finally be secured. 

But in the Divine sight there Avas chastening still in 
store for her. On the ninth of July, her eldest boy, 
Henry, was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut 
Hiver at Hanover, where he was pursuing his studies as 
Freshman in Dartmouth College. In order to understand 
Mrs. Stowe 's character more fully, we must hear of this 
sorrow from her own lips. She wrote to the Duchess of 
Sutherland, August 3d: — 

Dear Friend, — Before this reaches you you will 
have perhaps learned from other sources of the sad blow 
which has fallen upon us, — our darling, our good, beauti- 
ful boy, snatched away in the moment of health and happi- 
ness. Alas! could I know that when I parted from my 
Henry on English shores that I should never see him 
more? I returned to my home, and, amid the jubilee of 
meeting the rest, was fain to be satisfied with only a letter 
from him, saying that his college examinations were com- 
ing on, and he must defer seeing me a week or two till 
they were over. I thought then of taking his younger 
brother and going up to visit him; but the health of the 



1857] DEATH OF HEK ELDEST SON 239 

latter seeming unfavorably affected by the seacoast air, I 
turned back with him to a water-cure establishment. Be- 
fore I had been two weeks absent, a fatal telegram hurried 
me home, and when I arrived there, it was to find the 
house filled with his weeping classmates, who had just 
come, bringing his remains. There he lay so calm, so 
placid, so peaceful, that I could not believe that he would 
not smile upon me, and that my voice, which always had 
such power over him, could not recall him. There had al- 
ways been such a peculiar union, such a tenderness between 
us. I had had such power always to call up answering 
feelings to my own, that it seemed impossible that he could 
be silent and unmoved at my grief. But yet, dear friend, 
I am sensible that in this last sad scene I had an alle- 
viation that was not granted to yovi, I recollect, in the 
mournful letter you wrote me about that time, you said 
that you mourned that you had never told your own dear 
one how much you loved him. That sentence touched me 
at the time. I laid it to heart, and from that time lost no 
occasion of expressing to my children those feelings that 
we too often defer to express to our dearest friends till it is 
forever too late. 

He did fully know how I loved him, and some of the 
last loving words he spoke were of me. The very day 
that he was taken from us, and when he was just rising 
from the table of his boarding-house to go whence he 
never returned, some one noticed the seal ring which you 
may remember to have seen on his finger, and said, "How 
beautiful that ring is! " "Yes," he said, "and best of all, 
it was my mother's gift to me." That ring, taken from the 
lifeless hand a few hours later, was sent to me. Singu- 
larly enough, it is broken right across the name from a fall 
a little time previous. . . . 

It is a great comfort to me, dear friend, that I took 
Henry with me to Dunrobin. I hesitated about keeping 



240 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

him so long from his studies, but still I thought a mind 
so observing and appreciative might learn from such a tour 
more than through books, and so it was. He returned 
from England full of high resolves and manly purposes. 
"I may not be what the world calls a Christian," he wrote, 
" but I will live such a life as a Christian ought to live, 
such a life as every true man ought to live." Henceforth 
he became remarkable for a strict order and energy, and a 
vigilant temperance and care of his bodily health, docility 
and deference to his parents and teachers, and persever- 
ance in every duty. . . . Well, from the hard battle of 
this life he is excused, and the will is taken for the deed, 
and whatever comes his heart will not be pierced as mine 
is. But I am glad that I can connect him with all my 
choicest remembrances of the Old World. 

Dunrobin will always be dearer to me now, and I have 
felt towards you and the duke a turning of spirit, because 
I remember how kindly you always looked on and spoke 
to him. I knew then it was the angel of your lost one 
that stirred your hearts with tenderness when you looked 
on another so near his age. The plaid that the duke gave 
him, and which he valued as one of the chief of his boyish 
treasures, will hang in his room, — for still we have a room 
that we call his. 

You will understand, you will feel, this sorrow with 
us as few can. My poor husband is much prostrated. I 
need not say more : you know what this must be to a 
father's heart. But still I repeat what I said when I saw 
you last. Our dead are ministering angels; they teach us 
to love, they fill us with tenderness for all that can suffer. 
These weary hours when sorrow makes us for the time 
blind and deaf and dumb, have their promise. These 
hours come in answer to our prayers for nearness to God. 
It is always our treasure that the lightning strikes. ... I 
have poured out my heart to you because you can under- 



1857] LETTEK TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS 241 

stand. Wliile I was visiting in Hanover, where Henry 
died, a poor, deaf old slave woman, who has still five chil- 
dren in bondage, came to comfort me. "Bear up, dear 
soul," she said; "you must bear it, for the Lord loves ye." 
She said further, "Sunday is a heavy day to me, 'cause I 
can't work, and can't hear preaching, and can't read, so I 
can't keep my mind off my poor children. Some on 'em 
the blessed Master 's got, and they 's safe; but, oh, there 
are five that I don't know where they are." 

What are our mother-sorrows to this! I shall try to 
search out and redeem these children, though, from the ill 
success of efforts already made, I fear it will be hopeless. 
Every sorrow I have, every lesson on the sacredness of 
family love, makes me the more determined to resist to the 
last this dreadful evil that makes so many mothers so much 
deeper mourners than I ever can be. 

Affectionately yours, H. B. Stowe. 

About this same time she writes to her daughters in 
Paris: "Can anybody tell what sorrows are locked up with 
our best affections, or what pain may be associated with 
every pleasure ? As I walk the house, the pictures he used 
to love, the presents I brought him, and the photographs 
I meant to show him, all pierce my heart. I have had a 
dreadful faintness of sorrow come over me at times. I 
have felt so crushed, so bleeding, so helpless, that I could 
only call on my Saviour with groanings that could not be 
uttered. Your papa justly said, ' Every child that dies is 
for the time being an only one ; yes — his individuality no 
time, no change, can ever replace. ' 

"Two days after the funeral your father and I went to 
Hanover. We saw Henry's friends, and his room, which 
was just as it was the day he left it. 

" ' There is not another such room in the college as his, ' 
said one of his classmates with tears. I could not help 



242 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

loving the dear boys as they would come and look sadly in, 
and tell us one thing and another that they remembered of 
him. * He was always talking of his home and his sisters, ' 
said one. The very day he died he was so happy because 
I had returned, and he was expecting soon to go home and 
meet me. He died with that dear thought in his heart. 

"There was a beautiful lane leading down through a 
charming glen to the river. It had been for years the 
bathing-place of the students, and into the pure, clear 
water he plunged, little dreaming that he was never to 
come out alive. 

"In the evening we went down to see the boating club, 
of which he was a member. He was so happy in this 
boating club. They had a beautiful boat called the Una, 
and a uniform, and he enjoyed it so much. 

"This evening all the different crews were out; but 
Henry's had their flag furled, and tied with black crape. 
I felt such love to the dear boys, all of them, because they 
loved Henry, that it did not pain me as it otherwise would. 
They were glad to see us there, and I was glad that we 
could be there. Yet right above where their boats were 
gliding in the evening light lay the bend in the river, clear, 
still, beautiful, fringed with overhanging pines, from 
whence our boy went upward to heaven. To heaven — if 
earnest, manly purpose, if sincere, deliberate strife with 
besetting sin is accepted of God, as I firmly believe it is. 
Our dear boy was but a beginner in the right way. Had 
he lived, we had hoped to see all wrong gradually fall from 
his soul as the worn-out calyx drops from the perfected 
flower. But Christ has taken him into his own teaching. 

" ' And one view of Jesus as He is 
Will strike all sin forever dead.' 

"Since I wrote to you last we have had anniversary 
meetings, and with all the usual bustle and care, our house 
full of company. Tuesday we received a beautiful portrait 



1857] SORROW 243 

of our dear Henry, life-size, and as perfect almost as life. 
It has just that half -roguish, half -loving expression with 
which he would look at me sometimes, when I would come 
and brush back his hair and look into his eyes. Every 
time I go in or out of the room, it seems to give so bright 
a smile that I almost think that a spirit dwells within it. 

" When I am so heavy, so weary, and go about as if I 
were wearing an arrow that had pierced my heart, I some- 
times look up, and this smile seems to say, ' Mother, pa- 
tience, I am happy. In our Father's house are many 
mansions. ' Sometimes I think I am like a gardener who 
has planted the seed of some rare exotic. He watches as 
the two little points of green leaf first spring above the 
soil. He shifts it from soil to soil, from pot to pot. He 
watches it, waters it, saves it through thousands of mis- 
chiefs and accidents. He counts every leaf, and marks the 
strengthening of the stem, till at last the blossom bud was 
fully formed. What curiosity, what eagerness, what ex- 
pectation, — what longing now to see the mystery unfold 
in the new flower. 

"Just as the calyx begins to divide, and a faint streak 
of color becomes visible, — lo ! in one night the owner of 
the greenhouse sends and takes it away. He does not con- 
sult me, he gives me no warning; he silently takes it, and 
I look, but it is no more. What, then ? Do I suppose he 
has destroyed the flower? Far from it; I know that he 
has taken it to his own garden. What Henry might have 
been I could guess better than any one. What Henry is, 
is known to Jesus only." 

Shortly after this time, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her sister 
Catherine : — 

" If ever I was conscious of an attack of the Devil trying 
to separate me from the love of Christ, it was for some 
days after the terrible news came. I was in a state of 
great physical weakness, most agonizing, and unable to 



244 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

control my thoughts. Distressing doubts as to Henry's 
spiritual state were rudely thrust upon my soul. It was 
as if a voice had said to me : ' You trusted in God, did 
you ? You believed that He loved you ! You had perfect 
confidence that He would never take your child till the 
work of grace was mature! Now He has hurried him into 
eternity without a moment's warning, without preparation, 
and where is he ? ' 

''I saw at last that these thoughts were irrational, and 
contradicted the calm, settled belief of my better moments, 
and that they were dishonorable to God, and that it was 
my duty to resist them, and to assume and steadily main- 
tain that Jesus in love had taken my dear one to his 
bosom. Since then the Enemy has left me in peace. . . . 

" God who made me capable of such an absorbing, un- 
selfish devotion for my children, so that I would sacrifice 
my eternal salvation for them, — He certainly did not make 
me capable of more love, more disinterestedness than He 
has himself. He invented mothers' hearts, and He cer- 
tainly has the pattern in his own, and my poor, weak rush- 
light of love is enough to show me that some things can 
and some things cannot be done. Mr. Stowe said in his 
sermon last Sunday that the mysteries of God's ways with 
us must be swallowed up by the greater mystery of the love 
of Christ, even as Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of 
the magicians." 

Andovee, September 1. 
My darling Childken, — I must not allow a week 
to pass without sending a line to you. . . . Our home 
never looked lovelier. I never saw Andover look so beau- 
tiful; the trees so green, the foliage so rich. Papa and I 
are just starting to spend a week in Brunswick, for I am 
so miserable — so weak — the least exertion fatigues me, 
and much of my time I feel a heavy languor, indifferent to 



1857] HAKPSWELL 245 

everything. I know nothing is so likely to bring me up 
as the air of the seaside. ... I have set many flowers 
around Henry's grave, which are blossoming; pansies, 
white immortelle, white petunia, and verbenas. Papa 
walks there every day, often twice or three times. The 
lot has been rolled and planted with fine grass, which is 
already up and looks green and soft as velvet, and the 
little birds gather about it. To-night as I sat there the 
sky was so beautiful, all rosy, with the silver moon looking 
out of it. Papa said with a deep sigh, "I am submissive, 
but not reconciled." 

Brunswick, September 6. 
My dear Girls, — Papa and I have been here for 
four or five days past. We both of us felt so unwell that 
we thought we would try the sea air and the dear old 
scenes of Brunswick. Everything here is just as we left 
it. We are staying with Mrs. Upham, whose house is as 
wide, cool, and hospitable as ever. The trees in the yard 
have grown finely, and Mrs. Upham has cultivated flowers 
so successfully that the house is all surrounded by them. 
Everything about the town is the same, even to Miss Gid- 
ding's old shop, which is as disorderly as ever, presenting 
the same medley of tracts, sewing-silk, darning-cotton, and 
unimaginable old bonnets, which existed there of yore. 
She has been heard to complain that she can't find things 
as easily as once. Day before yesterday papa, Charley, 
and I went down to Harpswell about seven o'clock in the 
morning. The old spruces and firs look lovely as ever, 
and I was delighted, as I always used to be, with every 
step of the way. Old Getchell's mill stands as forlorn as 
ever in its sandy wastes, and Mere Brook creeps on glassy 
and clear beyond. Arriving at Harpswell a glorious hot 
day, with scarce a breeze to ruffle the water, papa and 
Charley went to fish for cunners, who soon proved too 



246 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 

cunning for them, for they ate every morsel of bait off the 
hooks, so that out of twenty bites they only secured two 
or three. What they did get were fried for our dinner, 
reinforced by a fine clam-chowder. The evening was one 
of the most glorious I ever saw, — a calm sea and round, 
full moon ; Mrs. Upham and I sat out on the rocks between 
the mainland and the island until ten o'clock. I never did 
see a more perfect and glorious scene, and to add to it there 
was a splendid northern light dancing like spirits in the 
sky. Had it not been for a terrible attack of mosquitoes in 
our sleeping-rooms, that kept us up and fighting all night, 
we should have called it a perfect success. 

We went into the sea to bathe twice, once the day we 
came, and about eight o'clock in the morning before we 
went back. Besides this we have been to Middle Bay, 
where Charley, standing where you all stood before him, 
actually caught a flounder with his own hand, whereat he 
screamed loud enough to scare all the folks on Eagle Island. 
We have also been to Maquoit. We have visited the old 
pond, and, if I mistake not, the relics of your old raft yet 
float there; at all events, one or two fragments of a raft 
are there, caught among rushes. 

I do not realize that one of the busiest and happiest of 
the train who once played there shall play there no more. 
"He shall return to his house no more, neither shall his 
place know him any more." I think I have felt the heal- 
ing touch of Jesus of Nazareth on the deep wound in my 
heart, for I have golden hours of calm when I say: "Even 
so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." So sure 
am I that the most generous love has ordered all, that I 
can now take pleasure to give this little proof of my un- 
questioning confidence in resigning one of my dearest com- 
forts to Him. I feel very near the spirit land, and the 
words, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me," 
are very sweet. 



1858] LETTERS WRITTEN IN AFFLICTION 247 

Oh, if God would give to you, my dear children, a view 
of the infinite beauty of Eternal Love, — if He would unite 
us in Himself, then even on earth all tears might be wiped 
away. H. B. S. 

She wrote to Lady Byron out of her open heart : — 

Andover, June 30. 

My dear Friend, — I did long to hear from you at 
a time when few knew how to speak, because I knew that 
you did know everything that sorrow can teach : you whose 
whole life has been a crucifixion, a long ordeal. But I 
believe that the "Lamb," who stands forever in the midst 
of the throne "as it had been slain," has everywhere his 
followers, those who are sent into the world, as He was, 
to suffer for the redemption of others, and like Him they 
must look to the joy set before them of redeeming others. 

I often think that God called you to this beautiful and 
terrible ministry when He sufi'ered you to link your des- 
tiny with one so strangely gifted, so fearfully tempted, and 
that the reward which is to meet you, when you enter 
within the veil, where you must soon pass, will be to see 
the angel, once chained and defiled within him, set free 
from sin and glorified, and so know that to you it has 
been given, by your life of love and faith, to accomplish 
this glorious change. 

And again from her chamber of sorrows she writes to 
her youngest daughter, Georgiana : — 

February 12. 

My dear Georgie, — Why haven't I written? Be- 
cause, dear Georgie, I am like the dry, dead, leafless tree, 
and have only cold, dead, slumbering buds of hope on the 
end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of thought, but no leaves, 
no blossoms; nothing to send to a little girl who doesn't 



248 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1859 

know what to do with herself any more than a kitten. I 
am cold, weary, dead; everything is a burden to me. 

I let my plants die by inches before my eyes, and do not 
water them, and I dread everything I do, and wish it was 
not to be done, and so when I get a letter from my little 
girl I smile and say, "Dear little puss, I will answer it;" 
and I sit hoiir after hour with folded hands, looking at 
the inkstand and dreading to begin. The fact is, pussy, 
mamma is tired. Life to you is gay and joyous, but to 
mamma it has been a battle in which the spirit is willing 
but the flesh weak ; and she would be glad, like the woman 
in the St. Bernard, to lie down with her arms around the 
wayside cross, and sleep away into a brighter scene. 
Henry's fair, sweet face looks down upon me now and 
then from out a cloud, and I feel again all the bitterness 
of the eternal "No" which says I must never, never, in 
this life, see that face, lean on that arm, hear that voice. 
Not that my faith in God in the least fails, and that I do 
not believe that all this is for good. I do, and though not 
happy, I am blessed. Weak, weary as I am, I rest on 
Jesus in the innermost depth of my soul, and am quite 
sure that there is coming an inconceivable hour of beauty 
and glory when I shall regain Jesus, and He will give me 
back my beloved one, whom He is educating in a far higher 
sphere than I proposed. So do not mistake me, — only 
know that mamma is sitting weary by the wayside, feel- 
ing weak and worn, but in no sense discouraged. 

Your affectionate mother, H. B. S. 

Mrs. Stowe's literary labors did not cease. In Novem- 
ber she published in the "Atlantic Monthly" a brief alle- 
gory called "The Mourning Veil," and in the following 
year, in December, the first chapters of "The Minister's 
Wooing. " 

She was kept in good heart and spirit by the very strong 



1859] THE minister's WOOING 249 

commendation of this story, from the moment of its ap- 
pearance. James Russell Lowell wrote of it : — 

"It has always seemed to us that the anti-slavery ele- 
ment in the two former novels by Mrs. Stowe stood in the 
way of a full appreciation of her remarkable genius, at least 
in her own country. It was so easy to account for the 
unexampled popularity of * Uncle Tom ' by attributing it 
to a cheap sympathy with sentimental philanthropy! As 
people began to recover from the first enchantment, they 
began also to resent it and to complain that a dose of that 
insane Garrison-root which takes the reason prisoner had 
been palmed upon them without their knowing it, and that 
their ordinary water-gruel of fiction, thinned with sentiment 
and thickened with moral, had been hocused with the 
bewildering hasheesh of Abolition. We had the advantage 
of reading that truly extraordinary book for the first time 
in Paris, long after the whirl of excitement produced by 
its publication had subsided, in the seclusion of distance, 
and with a judgment unbiased by those political sympa- 
thies which it is impossible, perhaps unwise, to avoid at 
home. We felt then, and we believe now, that the secret 
of Mrs. Stowe 's power lay in that same genius by which 
the great successes in creative literature have always been 
achieved, — the genius that instinctively goes right to the 
organic elements of human nature, whether under a white 
skin or a black, and which disregards as trivial the con- 
ventional and factitious notions which make so large a part 
both of our thinking and feeling. Works of imagination 
written with an aim to immediate impression are commonly 
ephemeral, like Miss Martineau's 'Tales,' and Elliott's 
' Corn-law Rhymes ; ' but the creative faculty of Mrs. 
Stowe, like that of Cervantes in ' Don Quixote ' and of 
Fielding in ' Joseph Andrews, ' overpowered the narrow 
specialty of her design, and expanded a local and temporary 
theme with the cosmopolitanism of genius." 



250 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1859 

In a private letter to Mrs. Stowe full of wit and wisdom 
on the same topic, Lowell says : — 

Let your moral take care of itself, and remember that 
an author's writing-desk is something infinitely higher 
than a pulpit. What I call " care of itself " is shown in 
that noble passage in the February number about the ladder 
up to heaven. That is grand preaching and in the right 
way. lam sure that "The Minister's Wooing " is going to 
be the best of your products hitherto, and I am sure of it 
because you show so thorough a mastery of your material, 
so true a perception of realities, without which the ideality 
is impossible. 

Woman charms a higher faculty in us than reason, 
God be praised, and nothing has delighted me more in your 
new story than the happy instinct with which you develop 
this incapacity of the lovers' logic in your female charac- 
ters. Go on just as you have begun, and make it appear 
in as many ways as you like that, whatever creed may 
be true, it is not true and never will be that man can be 
saved by machinery. I can speak with some chance of 
being right, for I confess a strong sympathy with many 
parts of Calvinistic theology, and, . . . for one thing, be- 
lieve in hell with all my might, and in the goodness of 
God for all that. 

I have not said anything. What could I say? One 
might almost as well advise a mother about the child she 
still bears under her heart, and say, Give it these and those 
qualities, as an author about a work yet in the brain. 

Only this I will say, that I am honestly delighted with 
"The Minister's Wooing; " that reading it has been one of 
my few editorial pleasures; that no one appreciates your 
genius more highly than I, or hopes more fervently that 
you will let yourself go without regard to this, that, or 



1859] LETTER FROM JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 251 

t'other. Don't read any criticisms on your story; believe 
that you know better than any of us, and be sure that 
everybody likes it. That I know. iThere is not, and 
never was, anybody so competent to write a true New 
England poem as yourself, and have no doubt that you are 
doing it. The native sod sends up the best inspiration to 
the brain, and you are as sure of immortality as we all are 
of dying, — if you only go on with entire faith in yourself. 
Faithfully and admiringly yours, J. R. Lowell. 

Mrs. Stowe's genius was essentially dramatic. She was 
her own theatre; herself among the actors; the scenery 
woven of her own brain. In her early days and in the 
places where she lived the theatre was unknown, and mvisic, 
save the homely singing of church and fireside, absolutely 
non-existent. 

Not only " Uncle Tom " but the slighter sketches of her 
earlier years, and " Dred," have the power which only genius 
possesses of sweeping you out of your own world into the 
world of her imagination; a world too, so lighted by the 
flame of truth that you feel your heart burn within you, 
as the hearts of all true men burned when she first laid 
the spell of her strong spirit upon them to breathe a new 
life into her fellow-men. 

We who knew Mrs. Stowe later saw her wrapped about 
as it were with a kind of sacred awe; but her work then 
bore the stamp of fatigue ; the long agony of spirit for those 
who were in bondage, the sympathy with the sorrows of hu- 
manity everywhere about her, the inexpressible woe which 
she endured in the trials and losses of her children, made 
writing a task for her. She was more than ever wonderful 
then in her conversation and personal communion with 
others. She literally poured her spirit out. She became 
one with the joy and the grief of others; she drew near to 
the heart of every one with whom she really came in close 



252 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1859 

contact. Every human being was to her a spirit walking 
the brief road to the eternal life, and the shows of things 
were the divine setting in which the Lord's jewels shone. 
She loved beautiful things and the luxuries of the world 
when she chanced to come across them, but they bound her 
no more than if they were the cobweb lines of the Lillipu- 
tians. 

In the summer of 1859, Mrs. Stowe again went to 
Europe for the last time, accompanied by her husband and 
her youngest daughter. They traveled two months in 
England, visiting their friends and reviewing the scenes 
which had become dear to her. In the autumn her two 
companions returned to America, to rejoin the youngest 
son, the only member of the family who had been left be- 
hind. Mrs. Stowe went on her way to Italy, and wrote to 
Professor Stowe from Lausanne, whither she had gone to 
meet her two eldest daughters, who had been left at school 
in Paris : — 

"Coming upstairs and opening the door, I found the 
whole party seated with their books and embroidery about 
a centre-table and looking as homelike and cosy as possible. 
You may imagine the greetings, the kissing, laughing, and 
good times generally." 

From Lausanne the party voyaged comfortably towards 
Italy. They were joined on the way by her Brooklyn 
friends, Mr. and Mrs. Howard and their children, her son 
Frederick and a friend of his. Before Christmas they 
were established in Florence, whence Mrs. Stowe wrote to 
Andover on Christmas Day : " We shall have quite a New 
England party to-night, and shall sing Milton's Christmas 
hymn in great force. Hope you will all do the same in 
the old stone cabin. 

" Our parlor is all trimmed with laurel and myrtle, look- 
ing like a great bower, and our mantel and table are redo- 
lent with bouquets of orange blossoms and pinks." 



1860] SPIRITUALISM 253 

January 16. 

My dear Husband, — Your letter received to-day- 
has raised quite a weight from my mind, for it shows that 
at last you have received all mine, and that thus the chain 
of communication between us is unbroken. What you said 
about your spiritual experiences in feeling the presence of 
dear Henry with you, and, above all, the vibration of that 
mysterious guitar, was very pleasant to me. Since I have 
been in Florence, I have been distressed by inexpressible 
yearnings after him, — such sighings and outreachings, with 
a sense of utter darkness and separation, not only from 
him but from all spiritual communion with my God. But I 
have become acquainted with a friend through whom I re- 
ceive consoling impressions of these things, — a Mrs. E. , 
of Boston, a very pious, accomplished, and interesting 
woman, who has had a history much like yours in relation 
to spiritual manifestations. 

Without doubt she is what the spiritualists would regard 
as a very powerful medium, but being a very earnest Chris- 
tian, and afraid of getting led astray, she has kept carefully 
aloof from all circles and things of that nature. She came 
and opened her mind to me in the first place, to ask my 
advice as to what she had better do, relating experiences 
very similar to many of yours. 

My advice was substantially to try the spirits whether 
they were of God, — to keep close to the Bible and prayer, 
and then accept whatever came. But I have found that 
when I am with her I receive very strong impressions from 
the spiritual world, so that I feel often sustained and com- 
forted, as if I had been near to my Henry and other de- 
parted friends. This has been at times so strong as greatly 
to soothe and support me. I told her your experiences, in 
which she was greatly interested. She said it was so rare 
to hear of Christian and reliable people with such peculiar- 
ities. . . , 



254 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 

One thing I am convinced of, — that spiritualism is a 
reaction from the intense materialism of the present age. 
Luther, when he recognized a personal devil, was much 
nearer right. We ought to enter fully, at least, into the 
spiritualism of the Bible. Circles and spiritual jugglery 
I regard as the lying signs and wonders, with all deceiv- 
ableness of unrighteousness; but there is a real scriptural 
spiritualism which has fallen into disuse, and must be re- 
vived, and there are, doubtless, people who, from some 
constitutional formation, can more readily receive the im- 
pressions of the surrounding spiritual world. Such were 
apostles, prophets, and workers of miracles. 

It was at this period that the editor of the present book 
first met Mrs. Stowe. We had both been invited to a large 
reception, one evening, in an old palace on the Arno. 
There were music and dancing, and there were lively 
groups of ladies and gentlemen strolling from room to room, 
contrasting somewhat strangely in their gayety with the 
solemn pictures hanging on the walls, and a sense of shad- 
owy presence which seems to haunt those dusky interiors. 
A certain discrepancy between the modern company and 
the surroundings, a weird mingling of the past and the 
present, made any apparition appear possible, and left room 
only for a faint thrill of surprise when a voice by my side 
said, "There is Mrs. Stowe." In a moment she ap- 
proached and I was presented to her, and after a brief 
pause she passed on. All this was natural enough, but a 
wave of intense disappointment swept over me. Why had 
I found no words to express or even indicate the feeling 
that had choked me ? Was the fault mine ? Oh, yes, I 
said to myself, for I could not conceive it to be otherwise, 
and I looked upon my opportunity, the gift of the gods, as 
utterly and forever wasted. I was depressed and sorrowing 
over the vanishing of a presence I might perhaps never 



1860] FLOKENCE 255 

meet again, and no glamour of light or music or pictures 
or friendly voices could recall any pleasure to my heart. 
Meanwhile, the unconscious object of all this disturbance 
Avas strolling quietly along, leaning on the arm of a friend, 
hardly ever speaking, followed by a group of traveling com- 
panions, and entirely absorbed in the gay scene around her. 
She was a small woman; and her pretty curling hair and 
far-away dreaming eyes, and her way of becoming occupied 
in what interested her until she forgot everything else for 
the time, all this I first began to see and understand as I 
gazed after her retreating figure. 

In those days of our early acquaintance in Italy we had 
ample opportunity to discover the afi'ectionate qualities of 
her character. If my first interview was a disappointment, 
her second greeting a few days later had the warmth of old 
acquaintance. From that moment we (my husband and I) 
were continually meeting her, in galleries and out of them, 
at Bellosgviardo, which Hawthorne had just quitted, but 
where Isa Blagden and Prances Power Cobbe still lingered, 
or in Florence itself with Francesca Alexander and her 
family, the Trollopes, or elsewhere. Our evenings were 
commonly spent in each other's apartments. 

Towards the end of February, the pleasant Florentine 
residence was given up for a long visit in Rome, There, 
one day, we went together to the rooms of the brothers 
Castellani, the world-famous workers in gold. The collec- 
tion of antique gems and the beautiful reproductions of 
them were new to us. Mrs. Stowe was full of enthusiasm, 
and we lingered long over the wonderful things which the 
brothers brought forward to show. Among them was the 
head of an Egyptian slave carved in black onyx. It was 
an admirable work of art, and while we were enjoying it 
one of them said to Mrs. Stowe, "Madam, we know what 
you have been to the poor slave. We are ourselves but 
poor slaves still in Italy; you feel for us; will you keep 



256 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 

this gem as a slight recognition of what you have done 1 " 
She took the jewel in silence; but when we looked for 
some response, her eyes were filled with tears, and it was 
impossible for her to speak. 

Great human tenderness was one of her chief character- 
istics. Although she was a reformer by nature there was 
no sternness in her composition. Forgetfulness of others 
there was certainly sometimes, arising from her hopeless 
absent-mindedness and the preoccupation consequent upon 
her work; but her whole life was swayed and ruled by her 
affections. 

Her love was a sheet anchor which held in the stormiest 
seas. Of her household devotion it is impossible to speak 
fitly; but there are few natures that can be said to have 
been more dependent upon human love. Her tender ways 
were inexpressibly touching. 

In spite of Mrs. Stowe's love of society, she did not be- 
come a woman of society, properly so called. She was 
greatly sought after and appreciated, but the habit of her 
mind and, I am tempted to say, the sincerity of her heart 
forbade it. A worldly- minded woman of great taste, ele- 
gance, and appreciation, a friend of Mrs. Stowe, once said 
to me, " Why is it that for some reason Mrs. Stowe does not 
seem to go into the best society ? " I could not help re- 
membering how all society was at her command if she 
had chosen to give herself to it, nor how her absorption 
of mind and her devotion to a small circle made any large 
currency impossible. The lady's question was one not to 
be answered. Eyes cannot always be given to the blind ; 
but we recall what Goethe says of this class of person in 
his wonderful correspondence with Schiller, — wonderful 
because in those letters we see two men really speaking to 
each other without reserve : — 

" It is amusing to see what it is has offended this kind 
of person ; what they believe offends others ; how hollow, 



1860] HOME 257 

empty, and common they esteem an existence different from 
their own, how they direct their shafts against the outworks 
of appearances, how little they even dream in what an in- 
accessible castle that man lives who is always in earnest in 
regard to himself and everything around him." 

Such a nature as Mrs. Stowe's was quite unlikely to 
help her in playing the part of a famous woman of the 
world with any success, and she did not attempt it. She 
was always reaching out to the friends of her adoption and 
drawing them closer to her side. 

When the hours of our European play-days drew near 
the end, she began to lay plans for returning home in the 
steamer with those who had grown dear to her, and in one 
of her notes of that period she wrote to me : — 

" On the strength of having heard that you were going 
home in the Europa June 16th, we also have engaged pas- 
sage therein for that time, and hope that we shall not be 
disappointed. ... It must be true, we can't have it other- 
wise. . . , Our Southern Italy trip was a glory ; it was 
a rose — a nightingale — all, in short, that one ever dreams, 
but alas ! it is over." 

She wrote to Professor Stowe : — 

Since my last letter a great change has taken place in 
our plans, in consequence of which our passage for America 
is engaged by the Europa, which sails the 16th of June ; 
60, if all goes well, we are due in Boston four weeks from 
this date. I long for home, for my husband and children, 
for my room, my yard and garden, for the beautiful trees 
of Andover. We will make a very happy home, and our 
children will help us. 

Affectionately yours, Hatty. 



1 



CHAPTER IX 

WAR 

We have now reached the period, both in the life of our 
country and of Mrs. Stowe, which, looked at with the eye 
of history, may be called the moment of culmination. 

The red hand of war, dreaded in itself, inexorable in its 
touch, yet inevitable, as Daniel Webster and others had seen 
a quarter of a century earlier, was looked upon at last 
by the regenerators of our people as the red-hot iron which 
was to burn away our disease. This belief was the only 
consolation in the miserable deep of suffering into which 
the nation was plunged, and it held the hearts of men high 
with courage and good cheer. 

All the private interests and emotions which necessarily 
occupied Mrs. Stowe were subservient in her heart to the 
interests of her country. To use her own words: — 

"It was God's will that this nation — the North as well 
as the South — should deeply and terribly suffer for the sin 
of consenting to and encouraging the great oppressions of 
the South; that the ill-gotten wealth, which had arisen 
from striking hands with oppression and robbery, should 
be paid back in the taxes of war; that the blood of the 
poor slave, that had cried so many years from the ground 
in vain, should be answered by the blood of the sons from 
the best hearthstones through all the free States; that the 
slave mothers whose tears nobody regarded should have 
with them a great company of weepers. North and South, 
— Rachels weeping for their children and refusing to be 
comforted ; that the free States, who refused to listen when 



1861] MRS. STOWE'S SON A VOLUNTEER 259 

they were told of lingering starvation, cold, privation, and 
barbarous cruelty, as perpetrated on the slave, should have 
lingering starvation, cold, hunger, and cruelty doing its 
work among their own sons, at the hands of these slave- 
masters, with whose sins our nation had connived." 

"Mrs. Stowe spoke from personal experience," writes 
the Eev. C. E. Stowe, "having seen her own son go forth 
in the ranks of those who first responded to the President's 
call for volunteers. He was one of the first to place his 
name on the muster-roll of Company A of the First Massa- 
chusetts Volunteers." While his regiment was still at 
the camp in Cambridge, Mrs. Stowe was called to Brooklyn 
on important business, from which place she writes to her 
husband under the date June 11. 

"Yesterday noon Henry" (Ward Beecher) "came in, say- 
ing that the Commonwealth, with the First (Massachusetts) 
Kegiment on board, had just sailed by. Immediately I 
was of course eager to get to Jersey City to see Fred. 
Sister Eunice said she would go with me, and in a few 
minutes she and I were in a carriage, driving towards the 
Fulton Ferry, Upon reaching Jersey City we found that 
the boys were dining in the depot, an immense building 
with many tracks and platforms. It has a great cast-iron 
gallery just under the roof, apparently placed there with 
prophetic instinct of these times. There was a crowd of 
people pressing against the grated doors, which were locked, 
but through which we could see the soldiers. It was with 
great difficulty that we were at last permitted to go inside, 
and that object seemed to be greatly aided by a bit of 
printed satin that some man gave Mr. Scoville. 

"When we were in, a vast area of gray caps and blue 
overcoats was presented. The boys were eating, drinking, 
smoking, talking, singing, and laughing. Company A was 
reported to be here, there, and everywhere. At last S. 
spied Fred in the distance, and went leaping across the 



260 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 

tracks towards him. Immediately afterwards a blue-over- 
coated figure bristling with knapsack and haversack, and 
looking like an assortment of packages, came rushing 
towards us. 

"Fred was overjoyed, you may be sure, and my first 
impulse was to wipe his face with my handkerchief before 
I kissed him. He was in high spirits, in spite of the 
weight of blue overcoat, knapsack, etc, etc., that he 
would formerly have declared intolerable for half an hour. 
I gave him my handkerchief and Eunice gave him hers, with 
a sheer motherly instinct that is so strong within her, and 
then we filled his haversack with oranges. 

"We stayed with Fred about two hours, during which 
time the gallery was filled with people, cheering and wav- 
ing their handkerchiefs. Every now and then the band 
played inspiriting airs, in which the soldiers joined with 
hearty voices. While some of the companies sang, others 
were drilled, and all seemed to be having a general jollifi- 
cation. The meal that had been provided was plentiful, 
and consisted of cofi"ee, lemonade, sandwiches, etc. 

"On our way out, we were introduced to the Eev. Mr. 
Cudworth, chaplain of the regiment. He is a fine-looking 
man, with black eyes and hair, set off by a white havelock. 
He wore a sword, and Fred, touching it, asked, ' Is this 
for use or ornament, sir ? ' 

" ' Let me see you in danger, ' answered the chaplain, 
' and you '11 find out, ' 

"I said to him I supposed he had had many a one con- 
fided to his kind ofiices, but I could not forbear adding one 
more to the number. He answered, ' You may rest as- 
sured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my power. ' 

" We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt lone- 
some enough Saturday evening on the Common in Boston, 
where everybody was taking leave of somebody, and he 
seemed to be the only one without a friend, but that this 
interview made up for it all. 



1862] VISIT TO WASHINGTON 261 

"I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteri- 
ously changed, and wears an expression of gravity and care. 
So our boys come to manhood in a day. Now I am watch- 
ing anxiously for the evening paper to tell me that the 
regiment has reached Washington in safety." 

"In November, 1862," says her son Charles, "Mrs. 
Stowe was invited to visit Washington, to be present at a 
great thanksgiving dinner provided for the thousands of 
fugitive slaves who had flocked to the city. She accepted 
the invitation the more gladly because her son's regiment 
was encamped near the city, and she should once more see 
him. He was now Lieutenant Stowe, having honestly 
won his promotion by bravery on more than one hard- 
fought field. " She writes of this visit : — 

Imagine a quiet little parlor with a bright coal fire, and 
the gaslight burning above a centre-table, about which 
Hatty, Fred, and I are seated. Fred is as happy as happy 
can be to be with mother and sister once more. All day 
yesterday we spent in getting him. First we had to pro- 
cure a permit to go to camp, then we went to the fort where 
the colonel is, and then to another where the brigadier- 
general is stationed. I was so afraid they would not let 
him come with us, and was never happier than when at 
last he sprang into the carriage, free to go with us for forty- 
eight hours. " Oh ! " he exclaimed in a sort of rapture, 
" this pays for a year and a half of fighting and hard work ! " 

We tried hard to get the five o'clock train out to Laurel, 
where J.' s regiment is stationed, as we wanted to spend 
Sunday all together; but could not catch it, and so had to 
content ourselves with what we could have. I have man- 
aged to secure a room for Fred next ours, and feel as though 
I had my boy at home once more. He is looking very 
well, has grown in thickness, and is as loving and affection- 
ate as a boy can be. 



262 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 

I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the briga- 
dier-general to let him stay with us a week. I have also 
written to General Buckingham in regard to changing him 
from the infantry, in which there seems to be no prospect 
of anything but garrison duty, to the cavalry, which is full 
of constant activity. 

General B. called on us last evening. He seemed to 
think the prospect before us was, at best, of a long war. 
He was the officer deputed to carry the order to General 
McClellan, relieving him of command of the army. He 
carried it to him in his tent about twelve o'clock at night. 
Burnside was there. McClellan said it was very unexpected, 
but immediately turned over the command. I said I 
thought he ought to have expected it, after having so disre- 
garded the President's order. General B. smiled and said 
he supposed McClellan had done that so often before that 
he had no idea any notice would be taken of it this time. 

Now, as I am very tired, I must close, and remain as 
always, lovingly yours, Hatty. 

Just before she left Hartford for Washington I received 
the following hurried note from her : — 

"I am going to Washington to see the heads of depart- 
ments myself, and to satisfy myself that I may refer to the 
Emancipation Proclamation as a reality and a substance, 
not a fizzle out at the little end of the horn, as I should be 
sorry to call the attention of my sisters in Europe to any 
such impotent conclusion. ... I mean to have a talk with 
' Father Abraham ' himself, among others. " 

Mrs. Stowe lost no time, but proceeded to carry out her 
plan as soon as practicable. Of this visit to Washington 
she says little in her letters beyond the following meagre 
words: "It seems to be the opinion here, not only that the 
President will stand up to his proclamation, but that the 
Border States will accede to his proposition for emancipa- 



1862] LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 263 

tion. I have noted the thing as a glorious expectancy ! 
. . . To-day to the home of the contrabands, seeing about 
five hundred poor fugitives eating a comfortable Thanks- 
giving dinner, and singing, ' Oh, let my people go ! ' It 
was a strange and moving sight." 

During this visit Mrs. Stowe wrote and dispatched to 
the "Atlantic Monthly" her most eloquent and noble ap- 
peal to the women of England. 

Eight years earlier an address had been received from 
England by Mrs. Stowe with the names of some of the 
most distinguished women of Great Britain at the head, 
urging the abolition of slavery. This appeal was beauti- 
fully illuminated, and the twenty-six folio volumes which 
accompanied it contain the signatures of more than half a 
million of British women. 

No published reply had as yet been made to this ad- 
dress. Now, however, the conditions had changed. The 
North was giving her children, her possessions, her life, in a 
vast struggle against slavery, and a strong party had arisen 
in England in favor of the South. 

Mrs. Stowe 's reply was calm and strong, but written 
with her heart's blood. She begins: "Sisters," — and 
after quoting their own words and describing the wonder- 
ful memorial in its oaken case as it stood before her, she 
continues, — " The signatures to this appeal are not the 
least remarkable part of it ; for, beginning at the very steps 
of the throne, they go down to the names of women in the 
very humblest conditions in life, and represent all that 
Great Britain possesses, not only of highest and wisest, but 
of plain, homely common sense and good feeling. Names 
of wives of cabinet ministers appear on the same page with 
the names of wives of humble laborers, — names of duch- 
esses and countesses, of wives of generals, ambassadors, 
savants, and men of letters, mingled with names traced in 
trembling characters by hands evidently unused to hold the 



264 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 

pen, and stiffened by lowly toil. Nay, so deep and ex- 
pansive was the feeling, that British subjects in foreign 
lands had their representation. Among the signatures are 
those of foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Auto- 
graphs so diverse, and collected from sources so various, 
have seldom been found in juxtaposition. They remain 
at this day a silent witness of a most singular tide of feel- 
ing which at that time swept over the British community 
and made for itself an expression, even at the risk of offend- 
ing the sensibilities of an equal and powerful nation. 

" No reply to that address, in any such tangible and mon- 
umental form, has ever been possible. It was impossible 
to canvass our vast territories with the zealous and indefati- 
gable industry with which England was canvassed for sig- 
natures. In America, those possessed of the spirit which 
led to this efficient action had no leisure for it. All their 
time and energies were already absorbed in direct efforts to 
remove the great evil, concerning which the minds of their 
English sisters had been newly aroused, and their only an- 
swer was the silent continuance of these efforts. 

"From the slaveholding States, however, .as was to be 
expected, came a flood of indignant recrimination and re- 
buke. No one act, perhaps, ever produced more frantic 
irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse. It came 
with the whole united weight of the British aristocracy 
and commonalty on the most diseased and sensitive part 
of our national life ; and it stimulated that fierce excitement 
which was working before, and has worked since, till it has 
broken out into open war. 

"The time has come, however, when such an astonish- 
ing page has been turned, in the anti-slavery history of 
America, that the women of our country, feeling that the 
great anti-slavery work to which their English sisters ex- 
horted them is almost done, may properly and naturally 
feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay before them 



1862] ADDRESS TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND 265 

the history of what has occurred since the receipt of their 
affectionate and Christian address. 

"Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict 
was coming to its intensest point. The agitation kept up 
by the anti-slavery portion of America, by England, and by 
the general sentiment of humanity in Europe, had made 
the situation of the slaveholding aristocracy intolerable. As 
one of them at the time expressed it, they felt themselves 
under the ban of the civilized world. Two courses only 
were open to them: to abandon slave institutions, the 
sources of their wealth and political power, or to assert 
them with such an overwhelming national force as to compel 
the respect and assent of mankind. They chose the latter." 

She then most eloquently and succinctly rehearses the 
steps of the struggle. 

The whole paper is eminently worth reproduction, but it 
is already in print and we must therefore deny ourselves. 
Towards the end she says : — 

Now, sisters of England, in this solemn, expectant hour, 
let us speak to you of one thing which fills our hearts with 
pain and solicitude. It is an unaccountable fact, and one 
which we entreat you seriously to ponder, that the party 
which has brought the cause of freedom thus far on its way 
during the past eventful year has found little or no sup- 
port in England. Sadder than this, the party which makes 
slavery the chief corner-stone of its edifice finds in Eng- 
land its strongest defenders. 

The voices that have spoken for us who contend for lib- 
erty have been few and scattering. God forbid that we 
should forget those few noble voices, so sadly exceptional 
in the general outcry against us ! They are, alas ! too few 
to be easily forgotten. False statements have blinded the 
minds of your community, and turned the most generous 
sentiments of the British heart against us. The North is 



266 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 

fighting for supremacy and the South for independence, has 
been the voice. Independence? for what? to do what? To 
prove the doctrine that all men are not equal; to establish 
the doctrine that the white man may enslave the negro! 

This very day the writer of this has been present at a 
solemn religious festival in the national capital, given at 
the home of a portion of those fugitive slaves who have fled 
to our lines for protection, — who, under the shadow of 
our flag, find sympathy and succor. The national day of 
thanksgiving was there kept by over a thousand redeemed 
slaves, and for whom Christian charity had spread an am- 
ple repast. Our sisters, we wish yo2i could have witnessed 
the scene. We wish you could have heard the prayer of 
a blind old negro, called among his fellows John the Bap- 
tist, when in' touching broken English he poured forth his 
thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound 
of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden 
to be sung on Southern plantations, — the psalm of this 
modern exodus, — which combines the barbaric fire of the 
Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old Hebrew 
prophet : — 

"Oh, go down, Moses, 
Way down into Egypt's land! 
Tell King Pharaoh 
To let mj' people go ! 
Stand away dere, 
Stand awaj' dere, 
And let nw people go! " 

As we were leaving, an aged woman came and lifted up her 
hands in blessing. " Bressed be de Lord dat brought me to 
see dis first happy day of my life ! Bressed be de Lord ! " 
In all England is there no Amen ? 

We have been shocked and saddened by the question 
asked in an association of Congregational ministers in Eng- 
land, the very blood relations of the liberty-loving Puritans 
— " Why does not the North let the South go ? " 



1862] AMEBIC A TO ENGLAND 267 

What! give up the point of emancipation for these four 
million slaves ? Turn our backs on them, and leave them 
to their fate 1 What ! leave our white brothers to run a 
career of oppression and robbery, that, as sure as there is a 
God that ruleth in the armies of heaven, will bring down 
a day of wrath and doom ? Remember that wishing suc- 
cess to this slavery-establishing effort is only wishing to 
the sons and daughters of the South all the curses that God 
has written against oppression. Mark our words ! If we 
succeed, the children of these very men who are now fight- 
ing us will rise up to call us blessed. Just as surely as 
there is a God who governs in the world, so surely all the 
laws of national prosperity follow in the train of equity; 
and if we succeed, we shall have delivered the children's 
children of our misguided brethren from the wages of sin, 
which is always and everywhere death. 

And now, sisters of England, think it not strange if 
we bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness, 
but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at your door. 
We say to you. Sisters, you have spoken well: we have 
heard you ; we have heeded ; we have striven in the cavise, 
even unto death. We have sealed our devotion by deso- 
late hearth and darkened homestead, — by the blood of 
sons, husbands, and brothers. In many of our dwellings 
the very light of our lives has gone out; and yet we accept 
the life-long darkness as our own part in this great and 
awful expiation, by which the bonds of wickedness shall 
be loosed, and abiding peace established on the foundation 
of righteousness. Sisters, what have you done, and what 
do you mean to do? 

We appeal to you as sisters, as wives, and as mothers, 
to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers 
to God for the removal of this affliction and disgrace from 
the Christian world. 

In behalf of many thousands of American women, 

Harriet Beecher Stowe. 



268 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 

John Bright and Archbishop Whately sent personal re- 
plies to this letter. John Bright said: "Before this 
reaches you, you will have seen what large and earnest 
meetings have been held in all our towns in favor of aboli- 
tion and the North. No town has a building large enough 
to contain those who come to listen, to applaud, and to 
vote in favor of freedom and the Union. The effect of this 
is evident on our newspapers and on the tone of Parliament, 
where now nobody says a word in favor of recognition, or 
mediation, or any such thing." 

Mrs. Browning says : — 

" I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and Adams 
speeches, but the danger seems averted by that fine mad- 
ness of the South which seems judicial. The tariff move- 
ment we should regret deeply (and do, some of us), only I 
am told it was wanted in order to persuade those who were 
less accessible to moral argument. It 's eking out the holy 
water with ditch water. If the Devil flees before it, even 
so, let us be content. How you must feel, you who have 
done so much to set this accursed slavery in the glare of the 
world, convicting it of hideousness. 

"Meanwhile I am reading you in the ' Independent,' sent 
to me by Mr. Tilton, with the greatest interest. Your new 
novel opens beautifully. " ^ 

Mrs. Stowe wrote to Mrs. Howard : — 

"Can it be that New York is going into revolution? I 
am writing on the decisive day (the 4th), yet ignorant what 
its vote. Why did not Henry stump the state for Wads- 
worth rather than this thing should be? We are all on 
tip-toe with anxiety. I don't know that there will long 
be any use in investing in anything, if New York is going 
to rebel and join the South as the ' Tribune ' announces to- 
night. I think I see her ' a doin' of it ' ! " 

It was left for others to speak of Mrs. Stowe 's interview 
1 The Pearl of Orr's Island. 



1862] INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN 269 

with President Lincoln. Her daughter was told that when 
the President heard her name he seized her hand, saying, 
" Is this the little woman who made this great war ? " He 
then led her to a seat in the window, where they were 
withdrawn, and undisturbed by other guests. No one but 
those two souls will ever know what waves of thought and 
feeling swept over them in that brief hour. 

Afterwards she heard these words pronounced in the 
Senate Chamber in the Message of President Lincoln; it 
was in the darkest hour of the war, Mrs. Stowe wrote, 
when defeat and discouragement had followed the Union 
armies and all hearts were trembling with fear : " If this 
struggle is to be prolonged till there be not a home in 
the land where there is not one dead, till all the treasure 
amassed by the unpaid labor of the slave shall be wasted, 
till every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be 
atoned by blood drawn by the sword, we can only bow 
and say, * Just and true are thy ways, thou King of 
saints!'" 

To the Duchess of Argyll Mrs. Stowe wrote from 

Andover, July 31. 

My deak Friend, — Your lovely, generous letter was 
a real comfort to me, and reminded me that a year — and 
alas ! a whole year — had passed since I wrote to your dear 
mother, of whom I think so often as one of God's noblest 
creatures, and one whom it comforts me to think is still in 
our world. 

So many, good and noble, have passed away whose friend- 
ship was such a pride, such a comfort to me ! Your noble 
father, Lady Byron, Mrs. Browning, — their spirits are as 
perfect as ever passed to the world of light. I grieve about 
your dear mother's eyes. I have thought about you all, 
many a sad, long, quiet hour, as I have lain on my bed and 
looked at the pictures on my wall; one, in particular, of 



270 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 

the moment before the Crucifixion, which is the first thing 
I look at when I wake in the morning, I think how suf- 
fering is, and must he, the portion of noble spirits, and 
no lot so brilliant that must not first or last dip into the 
shadow of that eclipse. Prince Albert, too, the ideal knight, 
the King Arthur of our times, the good, wise, steady head 
and heart we — that is, our world, we Anglo-Saxons — 
need so much. Ajid the Queen ! yes, I have thought of and 
prayed for her, too. But could a woman hope to have 
always such a heart, and yet ever be weaned from earth, 
" all this and heaven, too " ? 

Under my picture I have inscribed, "Porasmuch as 
Christ also hath suff"ered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves 
with the same mind." 

This year has been one long sigh, one smothering sob, to 
me. And »I thank God that we have as yet one or two 
generous friends in England who understand and feel for our 
cause. 

The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England, in 
those instincts of a right heart which always can see where 
the cause of liberty lies, has been as bitter a grief to me as 
was the similar prostration of all our American religious 
people in the day of the Fugitive Slave Law. Exeter Hall 
is a humbug, a pious humbug, like the rest. But I saw 
your duke's speech to his tenants! That was grand! If 
he can see these things, they are to be seen, and why can- 
not Exeter Hall see them 1 It is simply the want of the 
honest heart. 

Why do the horrible barbarities of Southern soldiers 
cause no comment? Why is the sympathy of the British 
Parliament reserved for the poor women of New Orleans 1 
Why is all expression of sympathy on the Southern side? 
You wonder at my brother. He is a man, and feels a 
thousand times more than I can, and deeper than all he 
ever has expressed, the spirit of these things. You must 



1863] LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF ARGYLE 271 

not wonder, therefore. Remember it is the moment when 
every nerve is vital; it is our agony; we tread the wine- 
press alone, and they whose cheap rhetoric has been for 
years pushing us into it now desert en masse. I thank my 
God I always loved and trusted those who now do stand 
true, — your family, your duke, yourself, your noble mo- 
ther. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great heart, her elo- 
quent letters, would have been such a joy to me! And 
Mrs. Browning, oh, such a heroic woman! None of her 
poems can express what she was, — so grand, so compre- 
hending, so strong, with such inspired insight! She stood 
by Italy through its crisis. Her heart was with all good 
through the world. Your prophecy that we shall come out 
better, truer, stronger, will, I am confident, be true, and it 
was worthy of yourself and your good lineage. 

Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only in 
the throes and ravings of the exorcism. The roots of the 
cancer have gone everywhere, but they must die — will. 
Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural destruction. 
Lincoln has been too slow. He should have done it sooner, 
and with an impulse, but come it must, come it will. Your 
mother will live to see slavery abolished, unless England 
forms an alliance to hold it up. England is the great 
reliance of the slave-power to-day, and next to England 
the faltering weakness of the North, which palters and 
dare not fire the great broadside for fear of hitting friends. 
These things 7nust be done, and sudden, sharp remedies 
are mercy. Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether 
God be with us or not, I know He is with the slave, and 
with his redemption will come the solution of our question. 
I have long known ivhat and who we had to deal with ia 
this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I had letters 
addressed to me showing a state of society perfectly incon- 
ceivable. If I had written what I knew of the obscenity, 
brutality, and cruelty of that society down there, society 



272 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 

would have cast out the books; and it is for their interest, 
the interest of the whole race in the South, that we should 
succeed. I wish them no ill, feel no bitterness, — they 
have had a Dahomian education which makes them savage. 
We don't expect any more of tliem^ but if slavery is de- 
stroyed, one generation of education and liberty will efface 
these stains. They will come to themselves, these States, 
and be glad it is over. 

I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please give 
my best love to your dear mother. I am going to write to 
her. If I only could have written the things I have often 
thought! I am going to put on her bracelet, with the 
other dates, that of the abolition of slavery in the District 
of Columbia. Kemember me to the duke and to your dear 
children. My husband desires his best regards, my daugh- 
ters also. 

I am lovingly ever yours, 

H. B. Stowe. 

Mrs. Stowe heard from her son directly after the battle 
of Gettysburg. But it was the chaplain who wrote : — 

Gettysburg, Pa., Saturday-, Julj^ 11, 9.30 P. M. 
Mrs. Stowe: 

Dear Madam, — Among the thousands of wounded and 
dying men on this war-scarred field, I have just met with 
your son, Captain Stowe. If you have not already heard 
from him, it may cheer your heart to know that he is in 
the hands of good, kind friends. He was struck by a frag- 
ment of a shell, which entered his right ear. He is quiet 
and cheerful, longs to see some member of his family, and 
is, above all, anxious that they should hear from him as 
soon as possible. I assured him I would write at once, and 
though I am wearied by a week's labor here among scenes 
of terrible suffering, I know that, to a mother's anxious 



\ 



1864] HER SON WOUNDED 273 

heart, even a hasty scrawl ahout her boy will be more than 
welcome. 

May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time ! 
Yours with sincere sympathy, 

J. M. Ckowell. 

In the autumn of 1864 she wrote to me: "I feel I need 
to write in these days, to keep from thinking of things that 
make me dizzy and blind, and fill my eyes with tears so 
that I cannot see the paper. I mean such things as are 
being done where our heroes are dying as Shaw died. It 
is not wise that all our literature should run in a rut cut 
through our hearts and red with our blood. I feel the need 
of a little gentle household merriment and talk of common 
things, to indulge which I have devised the following." 

Notwithstanding her view of the need and her skillfully 
devised plans to meet it, she soon sent another epistle, 
showing how impossible it was to stem the current of her 
thought. 

She wrote to the Editor of the Atlantic : — 

November 29, 1864. 

My dear Friend, — I have sent my New Year's arti- 
cle, the result of one of those peculiar experiences which 
sometimes occur to us writers. I had planned an arti- 
cle, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I began and 
sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, an irresist- 
ible impulse wrote for me what followed, — an offering of 
sympathy to the suffering and agonized whose homes have 
forever been darkened. Many causes united at once to 
force on me this vision, from which generally I shrink, but 
which sometimes will not be denied, — will make itself 
felt. 

Just before I went to New York two of my earliest and 
most intimate friends lost their oldest sons, captains and 



274 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1866 

majors, — splendid fellows physically and morally, beauti- 
ful, brave, religious, uniting the courage of soldiers to the 
faith of martyrs, — and when I went to Brooklyn it seemed 
as if I were hearing some such thing almost every day ; and 
Henry, in his profession as minister, has so many letters 
full of imploring anguish, the cry of hearts breaking that 
ask help of him. . , . 

In writing to Mrs. Howard at this time she says: "I left 
my poor Fred at home. I do hope he will get a good ship. 
The sea air works marvels in our family. That wound in 
his head will never heal unless by a general tonic to the 
whole system, ... I feel a weight of solicitude for the 
poor fellow which I can only lay where you lay yours." 

At last the war was ended, and she wrote to the Duchess 
of Argyll : — 

Haktfokd, February 19. 

My dear Friend, — Your letter was a real spring of 
comfort to me, bringing refreshingly the pleasant library at 
Inveraray and the lovely day I spent there. 

Oh, my friend, when I think of what has been done 
these last few years, and of what is now doing, I am lost 
in amazement. I have just, by way of realizing it to my- 
self, been reading " Uncle Tom's Cabin " again, and when I 
read that book, scarred and seared and burned into with 
the memories of an anguish and horror that can never be 
forgotten, and think it is all over now, all past, and that 
now the questions debated are simply of more or less time 
before granting legal suffrage to those who so lately were 
held only as articles of merchandise, — when this comes 
over me I think no private or individual sorrow can ever 
make me wholly without comfort. If my faith in God's 
presence and real, living power in the affairs of men ever 
grows dim, this makes it impossible to doubt. 



18G6] GARRISON AND OTHERS AFTER THE WAR 275 

I have just had a sweet and lovely Christian letter from 
Garrison, whose beautiful composure and thankfulness in 
his hour of victory are as remarkable as his wonderful 
courage in the day of moral battle. His note ends with 
the words, "And who but God is to be glorified? " Gar- 
rison's attitude is far more exalted than that of Wendell 
Phillips. He acknowledges the great deed done. He 
suspends his "Liberator" with words of devout thanksgiv- 
ing, and devotes himself unobtrusively to the work yet to 
be accomplished for the freedmen; while Phillips seems 
resolved to ignore the mighty work that has been done, be- 
cause of the inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that 
beset it still. We have a Congress of splendid men, — 
men of stalwart principle and determination. We have a 
President ^ honestly seeking to do right ; and if he fails in 
knowing just what right is, it is because he is a man born 
and reared in a slave State, and acted on by many influences 
which we cannot rightly estimate unless we were in his 
place. My brother Henry has talked with him earnestly 
and confidentially, and has faith in him as an earnest, good 
man seeking to do right. Henr}^ takes the ground that it 
is unwise and impolitic to endeavor to force negro sufi'rage 
on the South at the point of the bayonet. His policy would 
be, to hold over the negro the protection of our Freed- 
man's Bureau until the great laws of free labor shall begin 
to draw the master and servant together; to endeavor to 
soothe and conciliate, and win to act with us, a party com- 
posed of the really good men at the South. 

For this reason he has always advocated lenity of mea- 
sures towards them. He wants to get them into a state in 
which the moral influence of the North can act upon them 
beneficially, and to get such a state of things that there 
will be a party at the South to protect the negro. 

Charles Sumner is looking simply at the abstract right 

1 Andrew Johnson 



276 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1866 

of the thing. Henry looks at actual probabilities. We 
all know that the state of society at the South is such that 
laws are a very inadequate protection even to white men. 
Southern elections always have been scenes of mob violence 
when only white men voted. 

Multitudes of lives have been lost at the polls in this 
way, and if against their will negro suffrage were forced 
upon them, I do not see how any one in their senses can 
expect anything less than an immediate war of races. 

If negro suffrage were required as a condition of acquir- 
ing political position, there is no doubt the slave States 
would grant it; grant it nominally, because they would 
know that the grant never could or would become an actual 
realization. And what would then be gained for the 
negro ? 

I am sorry that people cannot differ on such great and 
perplexing public questions without impugning each other's 
motives. Henry has been called a backslider because of 
the lenity of his counsels, but I cannot but think it is the 
Spirit of Christ that influences him. Garrison has been 
in the same way spoken of as a deserter, because he says 
that a work that is done shall be called done, and because 
he would not keep up an anti-slavery society when slavery 
is abolished; and I think our President is much injured 
by the abuse that is heaped on him, and the selfish and 
unworthy motives that are ascribed to him by those who 
seem determined to allow to nobody an honest, unselfish 
difference in judgment from their own. 

Henry has often spoken of you and your duke as pleasant 
memories in a scene of almost superhuman labor and ex- 
citement. He often said to me: "When this is all over, 
— when we have won the victory, — then I will write to 
the duchess." But when it was over and the flag raised 
again at Sumter his arm was smitten down with the news 
of our President's death! We all appreciate your noble 



1866] AFTER THE WAR 277 

and true sympathy through the dark hour of our national 
trial. You and yours are almost the only friends we now 
have left in England. You caimot know what it was, 
unless you could imagine your own country to be in danger 
of death, extinction of nationality. That, dear friend, is 
an experience which shows us what we are and what we 
can feel. ... It seems almost like a dream to look back 
to those pleasant days with you all. I am glad to see you 
still keep some memories of our goings on. Georgie's 
marriage is a very happy one to us. They live in Stock- 
bridge, the loveliest part of Massachusetts, and her hus- 
band is a most devoted pastor, and gives all his time and 
property to the great work which he has embraced, purely 
for the love of it. My other daughters are with me, and 
my son. Captain Stowe, who has come with weakened 
health through our struggle, suffering constantly from the 
effects of a wound in his head received at Gettysburg, 
which makes his returning to his studies a hard struggle. 
My husband is in better health since he resigned his pro- 
fessorship, and desires his most sincere regards to yourself 
and the duke, and his profound veneration to your mother. 
Sister Mary also desires to be remembered to you, as do 
also my daughters. Please tell me a little in your next of 
Lady Edith; she must be very lovely now. 

I am, with sincerest affection, ever yours, 

H. B. Stowe. 

The labor, the shock, were past, but the fatigue and the 
strain of the long struggle for freedom which she carried 
always on her own heart could never be over-lived. She 
was already, as Mrs. Hawthorne used to say, "tired far 
into the future." The woman who had written "Uncle 
Tom " was not to continue a series of equally exciting sto- 
ries, but she was to bear the burden and heat of much 
every-day labor with the patience and the rejoicing of all 
faithful souls. 



278 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1866 

We are reminded, as we study Mrs. Stowe's life, of 
Swinburne's noble tribute to Sir Walter Scott after reading 
his Journals, which appeared in full only five or six years 
ago. He says: "Now that we have before us in full — 
in all reasonable or desired completeness — the great man's 
own record of his troubles, his emotions, and his toils, we 
find it, from the opening to the close, a record, not only 
of dauntless endurance, but of elastic and joyous heroism. 
... It is no longer pity that any one may presume to 
feel for him at the lowest ebb of his fortunes or his life; 
it is rapture of sympathy, admiration, and applause." 

The wound received by her son in his head was one 
from which he was never entirely to recover. "After 
weary months of intense suffering," his brother says, "it 
only imperfectly healed; the cruel iron had too nearly 
touched the brain of the young officer. He was never to 
be himself again. Soon after the war his mother bought 
a plantation in Florida, largely in the hope that the out- 
of-door life connected with its management might be bene- 
ficial to her afflicted son." 

No more harrowing experience than this was endured 
during our war; it is impossible to imagine anything more 
painful, in its slow continuance; the doubt respecting her 
boy's ultimate return to health; the methods to be em- 
ployed for his best welfare; the constantly increasing in- 
competence, and the final silence. She who was always 
a comforter for the sorrowful still wrote from the centre of 
divine peace : — 

" When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean 
And billows wild contend with angry roar, 
'Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion, 
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 



■ Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth. 

And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully ; 
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, 
Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, in thee." 



CHAPTER X 

PRIVATE LIFE IN WAR-TIME 

In a period of great public excitement a contrast is 
always to be observed. Private life still goes on, and it 
depends upon the temperament, the religion, the imagina- 
tion of individuals whether the surface of their existence 
is greatly deflected from ordinary channels by the public 
necessity. With Mrs. Stowe, as we have seen, thought, 
feeling, and her spiritual life on earth, if we may say so, 
were swallowed up in the struggle ; but as men lived on 
from day to day and the war stretched its dreadful length 
over years of time, life often appeared hardly more exciting 
to some persons than in certain periods before the strife 
began. We shall see how during this time Mrs. Stowe 
kept steadily at her desk, providing stories which were 
eagerly read by a large public. 

In order to make the picture of her life during the war 
a true one, we must return to the month of June, 1860, 
in which she left England for the last time. She was 
about leaving Paris for Liverpool when the news reached 
her of the sudden death of Annie Howard, the beautiful 
young daughter of her friend, and the companion of her 
children. Mrs. Stowe at once wrote Mrs. Howard: "Oh, 
my dear sister ! Why am I not with you . , . the blow 
has almost crushed us all. . . . We have thought of all 
things that we could do, — we thought of waiting here for 
you, but we have no hope that you could be here. , . . 
Our fears are for you, dear child, but we can only com- 
mend you to God. . . . How many stings and agonies and 



280 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 

living thorns there are for every hour and moment in a 
wrench like this, God only knows — hut God will reveal 
himself to you in the deep waters. ' When thou passest 
through the waters they shall not overflow thee, for I am 
with thee.' . . . Sorrow not, even as others, who have 
no hope. For, if we helieve that Jesus died and rose 
again, even so also them that sleep in Jesus shall God 
bring with Him." 

SwAYLANDS, Penshurst, June 10. 

My dear Susie, — We are resting a day or two in this 
peaceful retreat under the shaded skies of England, — liter- 
ally amid green pastures, and my thoughts return to you, 
as this letter will find you weary and desolate on your 
way to Paris. . . . 

Ah! Susie, I who have walked in this dark valley for 
now three years, what can I say to you who are entering 
it ? One thing I can say — be not afraid and confounded 
if you find no apparent religious support at first. When 
the heartstrings are all suddenly cut, it is, I believe, a 
physical impossibility to feel faith or resignation; there is 
a revolt of the instinctive and animal system, and though 
we may submit to God it is rather by a constant painful 
eifort than by a sweet attraction. There are cases when 
a superhuman grace is given and the soul is buoyed above 
itself, but more often we can only bleed in silent pain. . . . 

For such deep places there is nothing but the remem- 
brance of Him who though He were a, son, yet learned 
obedience by the things which He suffered. We see that 
it cost Him a conflict with agony and bloody sweat to say, 
Not my will but thy will. It did not come easily even 
to Him, and He said it over and over in his anguish as we 
must. Since that fearful night at your home " [the night 
when Mrs. Stowe heard of the death of her son] "every 
hour of life has been to me with an upper and an under 



1860] SYMPATHY IN SORROW 281 

current, and every day I have been making again and again 
that hard sacrifice, and it is a submission now as painful 
as at first. 

"Time but the impression stronger makes 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

and I know all the strange ways in which this anguish will 
reveal itself, — the prick, the thrust, the stab, the wearing 
pain, the poison that is mingled with every bright remem- 
brance of the past, — I have felt them all, — and all I can 
say is that, though "faint," I am "pursuing," although 
the crown of thorns secretly pressed to one's heart never 
ceases to pain. Yet as the day is the strength will be. 
So often this summer I have looked on you with your 
children all round you prosperous and hapi^y, and thought 
in what peace and prosperity your life was passing, and 
how little you could know of the inner cell in my heart 
where I spend so many sad hours. But I hnow whose 
hand holds ours . . . and that He makes no mistakes. . . . 
These are our weanings from earth, and we fill the long 
night with tossings and moanings. . . . Our Father, loving 
us better than we love ourselves, will educate us for our 
inheritance. It is no small thing, — this eternal glory, 
and we must suffer something for it. ... I am very 
poorly, but I am going to finish by copying one of the 
Plymouth hymns, which I have said over almost every 
day this winter and which I hope one day will be the ex- 
pression of my feelings. 

"I worship thee, sweet will of God, 
And all thy ways adore ; 
And everj' day I live, I long 
To love thee more and more." 

To this I add some lines that I thought of much after 
Henry's death : — 

" God never does, nor suffers to be done, 
But that which we would do, if we could see 
Tlie end of all events as well as He." 



282 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [I860 

On boakd the Europa, June. 
My beak Susie, — We had a great fright yesterday 

coming on in the express train. H was faint and we 

thought she was restored, but just as Ave were stopping at 
the next station she called out that she was dying, and 
must be taken into the air. . . . We hurried out, all of 
us, on to the platform with her, — we had been sitting with 
our hats off and had no time to put them on, — got her 
in all haste into a chamber of the railroad hotel, for she 
seemed to be in a death agony. ... At last she began to 
be more comfortable and we telegraphed to know when the 
ship Avould sail; put her on a mattress, caught the next 
express, found a physician, who gave her a tonic, and she 
had a tolerable night. I think all this the culmination of 
the excitement and fatigue of the last few weeks. ... I 
thought I had lost her, and felt all calm, for I know she 
is Christ's, whether it is yet made clear to her sad heart 
or not. . . . She has not been well since the shock of the 
sad news. . . . We are now lying by in Cork Harbor, 
with the prospect of spending the rest of the day here. . . . 
H. seems much better this morning, is dressed and on deck 
like anybody else. Each of you had a letter in Paris from 
one or another of us. 

Ever affectionately yours, H. B. Stowe. 

It was a beautiful voyage in every sense; and at that 
period a voyage was no little matter of six days, but a 
good fourteen days of sitting together on deck in pleasant 
summer weather, and having time enough and to spare. 
Hawthorne and his family also concluded to join the party. 
Mrs. Hawthorne, who was always the romancer in conver- 
sation, filled the evening hours by weaving magic webs of 
her fancies, until we looked upon her as a second Schehere- 
zade, and the day the head was to be cut off was the day 
•we should come to shore. "Oh," said Hawthorne, "I 



1860] RETURN TO AMERICA 283 

wish we might never get there." But the good ship 
moved steadily as fate. Meanwhile, Mrs. Stowe often 
took her turn at entertaining the little group. She was 
seldom tired of relating stories of New England life and 
her early experiences. 

When the ship came to shore, Mrs. Stowe and her 
daughters went at once to Andover, where Professor Stowe 
had remained at his post during the long winter. She 
went also with equal directness to her writing-desk; and 
though there are seldom any dates upon her letters, the 
following note must have heen written shortly after her 
return : — 

My dear Mr. Fields, — "Agnes of Sorrento" was 
conceived on the spot, — a spontaneous tribute to the ex- 
ceeding loveliness and beauty of all things there. 

One bright evening, as I was entering the old gateway, 
I saw a beautiful young girl sitting in its shadow selling 
oranges. She was my Agnes. Walking that same even- 
ing through the sombre depths of the gorge, I met "Old 
Elsie," walking erect and tall, with her piercing black eyes, 
Roman nose, and silver hair, — walking with determina- 
tion in every step, and spinning like one of the Fates glitter- 
ing silver flax from a distalf she carried in her hands. 

A few days after, our party, being weatherbound at Sa- 
lerno, had to resort to all our talents to pass the time, and 
songs and stories were the fashion of the day. The first 
chapter was my contribution to that entertainment. The 
story was voted into existence hj the voices of all that 
party, and by none more enthusiastically than by one 
young voice which will never be heard on earth more. 
It was kept in mind and expanded and narrated as we 
went on to Rome over a track that the pilgrim Agnes is to 
travel. To me, therefore, it is fragrant with love of Italy 
and memory of some of the brightest hours of life. 



284 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [I860 

I wanted to write something of this kind as an author's 
introduction to the public. Could you contrive to print 
it on a fly-leaf, if I get it ready, and put a little sort of 
dedicatory poem at the end of it? I shall do this at least 
in the book, if not now. 

She wrote to Mrs. Howard, Sunday, August 3, 

We have watched your course across the ocean from 
the first day of your sailing until now, every day, noting 
the wind and weather. ... I feel as if I had a sort of 
right in you which I never had before, as if you and I 
were united by a bond that could unite no others. . , . 
It was you who broke to me the sudden news of my life, 
and I no less seem to be associated in your kindred sorrow. 
Will you not therefore come to us as soon as you can ? . . . 
The old stone cabin will open wide its arms . . . when 
the ship arrives that brings the dear form — no longer 
Annie, but associated with her parted spirit ; then we shall 
come to Brooklyn and mingle our tears with yours. To- 
day we have been reading Henry's sermon, "The Sepul- 
chre in the Garden." "Italy," H. said, "was the lovely 
garden where we found the unexpected tomb." . . . Do 
come to us as soon as you can. It is calm, quiet, still, 
and shady, and we all long for you. . . . My health has 
been very poor since I came home. A most oppressive 
languor has weighed upon me. I have felt entirely pros- 
trate and longed for friends to lean on. . . . 

Your sister, H. B. S. 

A network of difficulties seems to have closed about her 
at this time, because in spite of her interest in the new 
story and the hopeful view which she took of its speedy 
completion, several months passed by before anything defi- 
nite came respecting her literary plans. 



1861] EXHAUSTED BY HER WORK 285 

Meanwhile she had been tempted into beginning "The 
Pearl of Orr's Island," a story good enough, if she had 
been left to herself and not overridden by greedy editors 
and publishers, to have added a lustre even to her name. 
It is to this she refers in the following letter when she 
speaks of her "Maine story." Unhappily the first num- 
ber, which is one of her finest pieces of writing, drew off 
power which belonged to "Agnes of Sorrento," and Agnes 
served to prevent her from ending "The Pearl of Orr's 
Island " in a manner worthy of its first promise. 

She says, writing in January, " Authors are apt, I sup- 
pose, like parents, to have their unreasonable partialities. 
Everybody has, — and I have a pleasure in writing ' Agnes 
of Sorrento ' that gilds this icy winter weather. I write 
my Maine story with a shiver, and come back to this as to 
a flowery home where I love to rest. 

"My manuscripts are always left to the printers for 
punctuation, — as you will observe ; I have no time for 
copying. " 

These incessant drafts upon Mrs. Stowe's energy had 
greatly enfeebled her; but her spirit was indomitable, and 
when she was weary a brief visit to Boston was, she con- 
sidered, sufficient to restore her nervous force. During 
these visits she sometimes rehearsed the story of the early 
days of her married life when, as we have seen, she fought 
her way through difficulties and under the burden of sor- 
rows which would have crushed many another woman. 

In an unpublished prefatory note for "The Pearl of 
Orr's Island," the first seventeen chapters of which ap- 
peared in April of this year, Mrs. Stowe wrote in No- 
vember: "The writer was applied to a year ago to furnish 
a serial story for 'The Independent.' This offer she 
promptly and decidedly declined, on the ground that she 
had not time nor strength, having just come under engage- 
ments to furnish one to the ' Cornhill Magazine, ' simulta- 



286 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 

neously with the 'Atlantic Monthly,' in America. [This 
was "Agnes of Sorrento."] The engagement for this story 
lasted from May, 1861, to May, 1862, and Mrs. Stowe 
thought it would absorb all her time and strength. 

"The editor of 'The Independent' subsequently wrote 
to know whether she could not furnish a short story to 
run through four or five numbers. . . . She responded 
that it had always been her experience that a short story 
once begun was taken possession of by certain spirits. "... 

In spite of her better reason she was induced to begin, 
and found, as she says in continuing: "a Captain Kittridge 
with his garrulous yarns, Misses Roxy and Ruey given to 
talk," and herself on the verge of her engagement for the 
"Atlantic Monthly" quite unprepared. 

Mrs. Stowe then wrote to "The Independent," propos- 
ing to stop her story then and there in two numbers, or 
to promise a continuation after six months, beginning again 
in December. The latter scheme was accepted. "But," 
she says, "the agitations and mental excitements of the 
war have, in the case of the writer, as in the case of many 
others, used up the time and strength which would have 
been devoted to authorship. 

"Who could write on stories that had a son to send to 
battle, with Washington beleaguered and the whole coun- 
try shaken as with an earthquake 1 Who could write fic- 
tion when fact was so imperious and terrible, in the days 
of Bull Run and Big Bethel? But the author has labored 
assiduously on her literary engagements, and if she must 
commence a month or two later in the autumn than she 
expected, it is no greater delay than the war has caused 
everywhere and in every department of business. 

" The readers will see by this frank statement that there 
has been no intention of dealing unfairly with them, but 
only the result of unforeseen circumstances. The story 
will be resumed the first of December." 



1861] DIFFICULTIES OF AUTHORSHIP 287 

Accordingly the second part, beginning with what is 
now chapter eighteenth, was begun in the number for De- 
cember, and completed in April. Upon taking up the 
story again, Mrs. Stowe issued in "The Independent" the 
following card : — 

TO OUR READERS 

In commencing again "The Pearl of Orr's Island," the 
author meets the serious embarrassment of trying to revive 
for the second time an unexpected pleasure. 

That a story so rustic, so woodland, so pale and color- 
less, so destitute of all that is ordinarily expected in a work 
of fiction, should be advertised in the columns of "The 
Independent" as this was last week, as "Mrs. So-and-So's 
great romance," or Avith words to that effect, produces an 
impression both appalling and ludicrous. 

It is as if some golden-haired baby, who had touched 
her mother's heart by singing: — 

"Jesus, tender shepherd, hear us! " 
should forthwith be announced with flaming playbills, to 
sing in the Boston Theatre as the celebrated Prima Donna, 
Madame Trottietoes! 

We beg our readers to know that no great romance is 
coming, — only a story pale and colorless as real life, and 
sad as truth. 

You will not be interested as you have been, kind 
friends, — we cannot hope it ; your expectations are raised 
only to be dashed; for our characters have no strange and 
wonderful adventures of outward life, and the changes that 
occur to them and the history they make is that of the 
inner life, that "cometh not with observation." 

We are most sorry for our dear little child-audience, 
who, now that Mara and Moses have grown up, will, we 
fear, lose their interest in them. What a pity, boys and 
girls, that you are not grown up too in these six months, 



288 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 

— and then Mara and Moses would not seem to you to be 
getting dull, and talking all sorts of unintelligible talk. 

But no, dear little folks, we don't wish it, either. 
We pray you may stay long little and believing, and able 
to be pleased with child's stories; for Christ says of such 
as you is the kingdom of heaven. We must try and see 
what can be done for you, and whether Captain Kittridge 
has not a story or two left in his pocket, with which to 
beguile your time. 

She speaks of the severe winter in her letters to Mrs. 
Howard: "Snow over the fences — up to the frames of 
the kitchen window. No cyclamen to be looked for yet, 

— no violets or anemones, nothing but wintry white, — 
and after this is gone will come unlimited water and slush. 
We have seemed to be on an island in the frozen ocean, — 
going nowhere and seeing nobody." . . . 

"Thursday evening of this week we inaugurated a soci- 
ety to be called the Pic-nic, to meet every week for mutual 
amusement, — pieces are to be written, songs sung, plays 
played. The first one was a brilliant success and we are 
in hopes to make the snows tolerable. I appoint you all 
corresponding members. Send us something." 

Thus we see the days wore on during this winter, while 
she was struggling against failing strength, much labor, 
and the hard weather, but cheerful still, as we who saw 
her in Boston know. It was during these war years that 
Mrs. Stowe exchanged many letters with three distin- 
guished persons whose correspondence was always a joy to 
her: Mrs. Browning, Mr. E-uskin, and Dr. Holmes. She 
writes to the latter: — 

AiroovEK. 
Dear Dr. Holmes, — I have had an impulse upon me 
for a long time to write you a line of recognition and sym- 



1861] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HOLMES 289 

pathy, in response to those that reached me monthly in 
your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie Venner "). 

I know not Avhat others may think of it, since I have 
seen nohody since my return; but to me it is of deeper 
and broader interest than anything you have done yet, and 
I feel an intense curiosity concerning that under-world of 
thought from which like bubbles your incidents and re- 
marks often seem to burst up. The foundations of moral 
responsibility, the interlacing laws of nature and spirit, 
and their relations to us here and hereafter, are topics 
which I ponder more and more, and on which only one 
medically educated can write well. I think a course of 
medical study ought to be required of all ministers. How 
I should like to talk with you upon the strange list of 
topics suggested in the schoolmaster's letter! They are 
bound to agitate the public mind more and more, and it is 
of the chiefest importance to learn, if we can, to think 
soundly and wisely of them. Nobody can be a sound the- 
ologian who has not had his mind drawn to think with 
reverential fear on these topics. 

Allow me to hint that the monthly numbers are not 
long enough. Get us along a little faster. You must 
work this well out. Elaborate and give us all the particu- 
lars. Old Sophie is a jewel; give us more of her. I 
have seen her. Could you ever come out and spend a day 
with usi The professor and I would so like to have a 
talk on some of these matters with you ! 

Very truly yours, H. B. Stow^e. 

Andover, February 18, 
Dear Doctor, — I was quite indignant to hear yester- 
day of the very unjust and stupid attack upon you in the 

. Mr. Stowe has written to them a remonstrance 

■which I hope they will allow to appear as he wrote it, and 
over his name. Ho was well acquainted with your father 
and feels the impropriety of the thing. 



290 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 

But, my dear friend, in being shocked, surprised, or 
displeased personally with such things, we must consider 
other people's natures. A man or woman may wound us 
to the quick without knowing it, or meaning to do so, 
simply through difference of fibre. As Cowper hath some- 
where happily said : — 

" Oh, why are farmers made so coarse, 
Or clergy made so fine? 
A kick that scarce might move a horse 
Might kill a sound divine." 

When once people get ticketed, and it is known that 
one is a hammer, another a saw, and so on, if we happen 
to get a taste of their quality we cannot help being hurt, 
to be sure, but we shall not take it ill of them. There be 
pious, well-intending beetles, wedges, hammers, saws, and 
all other kinds of implements, good, — except where they 
come in the way of our fingers, — and from a beetle you 
can have only a beetle's gospel. 

I have suffered in my day from this sort of handling, 
which is worse for us women, who must never answer, 
and once when I wrote to Lady Byron, feeling just as you 
do about some very stupid and unkind things that had in- 
vaded my personality, she answered me, "Words do not 
kill, my dear, or I should have been dead long ago." 

There is much true religion and kindness in the world, 
after all, and as a general thing he who has struck a nerve 
would be very sorry for it if he only knew what he had 
done. 

I would say nothing, if I were you. There is eternal 
virtue in silence. 

I must express my pleasure with the closing chapters of 
"Elsie." They are nobly and beautifully done, and quite 
come up to what I wanted to complete my idea of her 
character. I am quite satisfied with it now. It is an 
artistic creation, original and beautiful. 

Believe me to be your true friend, H. B. Stowe. 



1862] VARIED EESPONSIBILITIES 291 

Mrs. Stowe's correspondence with George Eliot did not 
begin until a few years later, although the letter written 
by Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Follen, printed in the earlier pages 
of this volume, had already awakened a strong feeling for 
the writer in Mrs. Lewes. She said of it, "The whole 
letter is most fascinating and makes me love her." 

Mrs. Stowe's replies to the interesting letters of Mr. 
Kuskin have not been found, nor those written to Mrs. 
Browning. We can only judge of their contents by the 
intimate and affectionate answers, portions of which are 
reproduced here, where they bear upon the subjects of the 
time. 

The ceaseless mill, whose engine was her own pen, still 
went on whatever interruptions or preoccupations came to 
her. 

The varied currents of thought and feeling excited by 
the war, and her trouble with two serial stories, made Mrs. 
Stowe's work much more diflftcult, although she would not 
recognize it even in her own mind. She explained herself 
sometimes to Mrs. Howard by saying: *'I never was so 
hard run in writing as I have been lately, so you must 
appreciate this so large letter writ with my own hand," 

In April, she writes the same friend: "At last I am 
free. Both stories are finished, and the last copy sent 
to England, thanks to the girls' busy copying fingers. I 
have been pressed and overdriven. . . . Next I have to 
go to Canada and spend ten days or a fortnight securing 
copyright. Not a pleasant journey, but we shall try to 
make the best of it." 

From the moment of our return from Europe together 
Mrs, Stowe began to form the habit of getting a little much- 
needed rest and change by coming to us for brief visits in 
Boston. 

During these vacations she was always interested to ob- 
serve the benevolent work going on about her and to lend 



292 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 

a hand if it were possible. One incident flavored with a 
strong touch of the ludicrous still lingers in my memory. 
We had fallen in somewhere with a poor little waif of a 
boy, one easily to be recognized by the practiced eye of 
to-day as a good specimen of the street Arab. This little 
being was taken up by us and brought home. His arrival 
was looked upon with horror by the servants, who recog- 
nized existing facts and foresaw future miseries veiled from 
our less educated vision. A visit to the bathroom was at 
once suggested ; but as none of the house maidens offered 
to take charge of the business, Mrs. Stowe announced her- 
self as more than equal to the occasion and proceeded to 
administer the first bath probably ever known to that 
specimen of the human family. Hawthorne's clasping the 
leprous child was but a shadow compared to that hour, but 
happily Mrs. Stowe was not Hawthorne and she combed 
and scrubbed faithfully. 

I cannot recall the precise ending of the tale. I can 
only remember the whole house being aroused at some 
unearthly hour of that night by the child's outcries, from 
his unusual indulgence in a good supper, and Mrs. Stowe's 
amusement at the situation. She declared the household 
was far better constituted to look after young cherubim 
than young male humans. Something of the canary-bird 
order would be much more in its line, she said. I believe 
he ran away the next day, probably understanding the 
fitness of things better than ourselves. At any rate I find 
a comforting note on the subject from Andover saying: 
"If we can do no more we must let him go. He cer- 
tainly stands a better chance in his life's journey for the 
' little good we have been able to put into him. When we 
try a little to resist the evil current and to pull one out 
here and there, we learn how dreadful is the downward 
gravitation, the sweep and whirl of the maelstrom. Let 
us hope all these have a Father, who charges Himself with 



1862] LEAVING ANDOVER 293 

them somewhere further on in their eternal pilgrimage 
when our weak hold fails." 

In the autumn a plan for leaving Andover altogether 
was finally matured. She wrote, "You have heard that 
we are going to Hartford to live, and I am now in all 
the bustle of house planning, to say nothing of grading, 
under-draining, and setting out trees around our future 
home. It is four acres and a half of lovely woodland on 
the banks of a river and yet within an easy walk of Hart- 
ford; in fact, in the city limits; and when our house is 
done you and yours must come and see us. I would 
rather have made the change in less troublous times, but 
the duties here draw so hardly on Mr. Stowe's strength 
that I thought it better to live on less and be in a place of 
our own, and with no responsibilities except those of com- 
mon gentlefolk." 

Mrs. Stowe's love of home, of the fireside, and her faith 
in family ties were marked characteristics of her nature. 
For the first time in her life she was now to make the 
material house, at least, after her own idea, and for many 
months she was absorbed in the enjoyment of forming 
plans for her Hartford home. 

In November she was in Hartford superintending the 
growing establishment. She wrote, — "My house with 
eight gables is growing wonderfully. I go over every 
day to see it. I am busy with drains, sewers, sinks, 
digging, trenching, and above all with manure! You 
should see the joy with which I gaze on manure heaps in 
which the eye of faith sees Delaware grapes and D'Angou- 
leme pears, and all sorts of roses and posies, which at some 
future day I hope you will be able to enjoy. 

"Do tell me if our friend Hawthorne praises that arch 
traitor Pierce in his preface, and your loyal firm publishes 
it. I never read the preface, and have not yet seen the 
book, but they say so here, and I can scarcely believe it 



294 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 

of you, if I can of him. I regret that I went to see him 
last summer. What! patronize such a traitor to our faces! 
I can scarce believe it. 

" Meanwhile old Hartford seems fat, rich, and cosy, — 
stocks higher than ever, business plenty, — everything as 
tranquil as possible. The drawings of our house, that is to 
be, are now finished, the spot where it is to stand is staked 
out, and if you will come here I will show you both. To- 
night I was there, and the great full moon shining down 
on the river and the red trees growing redder in the twi- 
light made a beautiful picture." 

The year proved an eventful one to Mrs. Stowe. "In 
the first place," says her son Charles, "the long and plea- 
sant Andover connection of Professor Stowe was about to 
be severed, and the family were to remove to Hartford. 
They were to occupy a house that Mrs. Stowe was build- 
ing on the bank of Park River. It was erected in a 
grove of oaks that had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. 
Stowe's favorite resorts. Here, with her friend Georgiana 
May, she had passed many happy hours, and had often 
declared that if she were ever able to build a house, it 
should stand in that very place. Here, then, it was built; 
and as the location was at that time beyond the city 
limits, it formed, with its extensive, beautiful groves, a 
particularly charming place of residence. Beautiful as it 
was, however, it was occupied by the family for only a 
few years. The needs of the growing city caused factories 
to spring up in the neighborhood, and to escape their en- 
croachments ten years later, Mrs. Stowe bought and moved 
into the house on Forest Street that was ever afterward her 
Northern home. Thus the only house Mrs. Stowe ever 
planned and built for herself has been appropriated to the 
use of factory hands, and is now a tenement occupied by 
several families. " 

In this year, also, was finally published "Agnes of 
Sorrento. " 



1863] REMOVAL 295 

In the month of May came the first letter to her pub- 
lisher from the new place. Already we find that the ever- 
present need has driven Mrs. Stowe to print her thoughts 
about "House and Home." 

Hartford, Oakwold, May 1. 

My dear Friend, — I came here a month ago to hurry 
on the preparations for our house, in which I am now 
writing, in the high bow window of Mr. Stowe 's study, 
overlooking the wood and river. We are not moved in 
yet, only our things, and the house presents a scene of the 
wildest chaos, the furniture having been tumbled in and 
lying boxed and promiscuous. 

I sent the sixth number of " House and Home Papers " 
a week ago, and, not having heard from it, am a little 
anxious. I always want faith that a bulky manuscript 
will go safe, — for all I never lost one. ... I should 
like to show you the result here when we are fairly in, 
and the spring leaves are out. It is the brightest, cheer- 
fulest, homeliest home that you could see, — not even 
excepting yours. 

The pursuit of literature under such circumstances is 
neither natural nor profitable. In Mrs. Stowe 's case it 
proved that she was pursuing, not literature, but the ne- 
cessities of life. Everything in the household economy 
now depended upon her; and however strong her tenden- 
cies were naturally, she no longer possessed the reserved 
strength to forge the work from her brain. In the writing 
of "Uncle Tom," great as were the odds against her, she 
had been preparing to that end from the moment of her 
birth. Her father's fiery powers of expression; her mo- 
ther's nature, absorbed in the still dream of love and duty ; 
her own solitary childhood in spite of the enormous house- 
hold in which she was brought up ; above all her brooding 



296 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 

nature quietly absorbing and assimilating the knowledge 
and thought which were finding expression around her; 
the first years of married life in Cincinnati, where the 
slaves were continually harbored and assisted, notAvith- 
standing the risks to life and property, — everything, in 
short, within and around her was nourishing the child of 
her genius which was to leap into being and gather the 
armies of America. 

On the whole we may rather wonder at the high average 
value of the literary work by which she lived, especially 
when we follow the hints given in her letters of her inter- 
rupted and crowded existence. 

In June she says, — "I wrote my piece in a sea of 
troubles. I had, as you see, to write by amanuensis, and 
yet my little senate of girls say they like it better than 
anything I have written yet." It was a touching charac- 
teristic to see how the "senate of girls," or of such house- 
hold friends as she could muster wherever she might be, 
were always called in to keep up her courage and to give 
her a sympathetic stimulus. During the days when she 
was writing, it was never safe to be far away, for she was 
rapid as light itself, and before a brief hour was ended we 
were pretty sure to hear her voice calling "Do come, 
come and hear and tell me how you like it." 

Her June letter continues: "Can I begin to tell you 
what it is to begin to keep house in an unfinished home 
and place, dependent on a carpenter, a plumber, a mason, 
a bell-hanger, who come and go at their own sweet will, 
breaking in, making all sorts of chips, dust, dirt, going 
off in the midst leaving all standing, — reappearing at un- 
certain intervals and making more dust, chips, and dirt. 
One parlor and my library have thus risen piecemeal by 
disturbance and convulsions. They are now almost done, 
and the last box of books is almost unpacked, but my head 
aches so with the past confusion that I cannot get up any 



1864] THE NEW HOUSE 297 

feeling of rest. I can't enjoy — can't feel a minute to sit 
down and say ' It is done. ' 

"The fountain plays, the plants flourish, and our front 
hall minus the stair railing looks beautifully ; my pictures 
are all hung in parlor and library, and yet I feel so unset- 
tled. Well, in a month more perhaps I shall get my 
brains right side up." 

The following year was made memorable in Mrs. 
Stowe's life by the marriage of her youngest daughter. 
Again I find that no description can begin to give as 
clearly as the glimpses in her own letters the multifarious 
responsibilities which beset her. She says: "I am in 
trouble, — have been in trouble ever since my turtle-doves 
announced their intention of pairing in June instead of 
August, because it entailed on me an immediate necessity 
of bringing everything out of doors and in to a state of 
completeness for the wedding exhibition in June. The 
garden must be planted, the lawn graded, harrowed, rolled, 
seeded, and the grass up and growing, stumps got out and 
shrubs and trees got in, conservatory made over, belts 
planted, holes filled, — and all by three very slippery sort 
of Irishmen who had rather any time be minding their own 
business than mine. I have back doorsteps to be made, 
and troughs, screens, and what not; papering, painting, 
and varnishing, hitherto neglected, to be completed ; also 
spring house-cleaning; also dressmaking for one bride and 

three ordinary females; also and and 's 

wardrobes to be overlooked; also carpets to be made and 
put down; also a revolution in the kitchen cabinet, threat- 
ening for a time to blow up the whole establishment alto- 
gether." And so the letter proceeds with two more sheets, 
adding near the end: "I send you to-day a 'Chimney 
Corner ' on ' Our Martyrs, ' which I have written out of 
the fullness of my heart. ... It is an account of the 
martyrdom of a Christian boy of our own town of An- 



298 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1864 

dover, who died of starvation and want in a Southern 
prison on last Christmas Day." 

Just one month before the marriage she writes again: 
"The wedding is indeed an absorbing whirlpool, but amid 
it all I have the next ' Chimney Corner ' in good train and 
shall send it on to-morrow or next day." 

How small a portion of the world outside can under- 
stand the lives of writers, actors, and those whose profes- 
sions compel them to depend directly upon the public! 
No private joy, no private sorrow, no rest, no change, is 
recognized by this taskmaster. It is well: on the whole 
we would not have it otherwise; because those who can 
minister to the great Public embrace their profession in a 
spirit of conscious or unconscious self-denial. In either 
case the result is the same: development, advancement, 
and sometimes attainment. 

The wedding is not two days over when another letter 
arrives full of her literary work, yet adding that she longs 
for rest and if we will only tell her where Campton is, 
whither we had gone, she would gladly join us. "I was 
a weary idiot," she continues, "by the time the wedding 
was over, and said ' Yes ma'am ' to the men and ' No sir ' 
to the women in sheer imbecility." 

Nevertheless she did not get to Campton, but kept on, 
with the exception of a few brief visits at Peekskill and 
elsewhere until the autumn. In one of her notes she 

says: "I have returned to my treadmill, A is to 

leave as soon as she can get ready, and I am trying to see 
her off, — helping her to get her things together, and try- 
ing to induce her to take a new stand in a new place and 
make herself a respectable woman. When she is gone a 
load will be off my back. If it were not for the good that 
is still left in our fellows our task would be easier than it 
is — we could cut them adrift and let them swim; but 
while we see much that may be turned to good account in 



1864] PRIVATE PHILANTHROPIES 299 

them we hang on, or let them hang on, and our boat 
moves slow. So behold me fighting my good fight of 
womanhood against dust and disorganization and the uni- 
versal downward tendency of everybody, hoping for easier 
times by and by." 

With her heroic nature she was always ready to lead 
the forlorn hope. The child no one else was willing to 
provide for, the woman the world despised, were brought 
into her home and cared for as her own. Unhappily, her 
delicate health at this time (though she was naturally 
strong), her constant literary labors, her uncertain income, 
her private griefs, all united, caused her to fall short in 
ability to accomplish what she undertook; hence there 
were often crises from sudden illness and non-fulfillment 
of engagements which were very serious in their eifects, 
but the elasticity of her spirits was something marvelous 
and carried her over many a hard place. 

The truth was, and it may seem a singular antithesis to 
say of the writer of one of the greatest stories the world 
has yet produced, that she was not a student of literature. 
Books as a medium of the ideas of the age, and as the 
promulgators of morals and religion, were of course like 
the breath of her life; but a study of the literature of the 
past as the only true foundation for a literature of the 
present was outside the pale of her occupations, and for 
the larger portion of her life outside of her interest. 
During the riper season of her activity with the pen, the 
necessity of studying style and the thoughts of others 
gained a larger hold upon her mind; but she always said, 
with a twinkle of amusement and pride, that she never 
could have done anything without Mr. Stowe. He knew 
everything, and all she had to do was to go to him. All 
this double service, the impossibility of devoting herself 
to a career which was after all her appointed work, made 
her work exceptionally difficult. 



300 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1864 

All her life she stimulated the activity of her pen rather 
by her sympathy with humanity than by studies of litera- 
ture. In one of her letters she says: "You see whoever 
can write on home and family matters, on what people 
think of and are anxious about and want to hear from, has 
an immense advantage. The success of the ' House and 
Home Papers ' shows me how much people want this sort 
of thing, and, now I am bringing the series to a close, I 
find I have ever so much more to say ; in fact, the idea 
has come in this shape. . . . A set of papers for the next 
year to be called ' Christopher's Evenings, ' which will 
allow great freedom and latitude; a capacity of striking 
anywhere when a topic seems to be in the public mind 
and that will comprise a little series of sketches or rather 
little groups of sketches out of which books may be made. 
You understand Christopher writes these for the winter- 
evening amusement of his family. One set will be en- 
titled ' An Account of the Seven Little Foxes that spoil 
the Vines, ' This will cover seven sketches of certain 
domestic troubles. Another set is the * Cathedral ; or, 
the Shrines of Home Saints,' under which I shall give 
certain sketches of home characters contrasting with that 
of the legends of the saints: the shirt-making, knitting, 
whooping-cough-tending saints, the Aunt Esthers and Aunt 
Marias. . . . Hum " [her-humming bird] " is well — not- 
withstanding the dull weather; we keep him in a sunny 
upper chamber and feed him daily on sugar and water, and 
he catches his own mutton." 

Thus in swift succession we find, not only charming 
little idyls here and there like her story of "Hum the 
Son of Buzz" in "Our Young Folks," being the tale of 
her captured and tamed humming-bird, but also "Little 
Foxes," "The Chimney Corner," a volume of collected 
Poems, " Oldtown Folks," " Sam Lawson's Fireside 
Tales," and others, following with tireless rapidity, bear- 



1864] RECOGNITION 301 

ing the same stamp of living sympathy with difficulties of 
the time and breathing a spirit of helpfulness and faith. 

The world is yet to recognize the value of her writings 
in their influence upon the suffering of our common human- 
ity. When this power was concentrated upon the evil of 
slavery the response was national, universal, and unpre- 
cedented; but such papers as "The Ministries of Departed 
Friends; A New Year Reverie," and others of like char- 
acter, will long keep her pages sacred to the dwellers in 
silent places. 



CHAPTEE XI 

LIFE IN FLORIDA 

After the close of the war, the infirm condition of her 
son being ever in her mind, Mrs. Stowe began to discuss 
projects for making a winter home in Florida. "She was 
also," writes her son Charles, "most anxious to do her 
share towards educating and leading to a higher life those 
colored people whom she had helped so largely to set free, 
and who were still in the state of profound ignorance im- 
posed by slavery." In writing of her hopes and plans to 
her brother Charles Beecher, in 1866, she says : — 

"My plan of going to Florida, as it lies in my mind, is 
not in any sense a mere worldly enterprise. I have for 
many years had a longing to be more immediately doing 
Christ's work on earth. My heart is with that poor peo- 
ple whose cause in words I have tried to plead, and who 
now, ignorant and docile, are just in that formative stage 
in which whoever seizes has them. 

" Corrupt politicians are already beginning to speculate 
on them as possible capital for their schemes, and to fill 
their poor heads with all sorts of vagaries. Florida is the 
State into which they have, more than anywhere else, \ 
been pouring. Emigration is positively and decidedly set- 
ting that way; but as yet it is mere worldly emigration, 
with the hope of making money, nothing more. 

"The Episcopal Church is, however, undertaking, under 
direction of the future Bishop of Florida, a wide-embra- 
cing scheme of Christian activity for the whole State. In 
this work I desire to be associated, and my plan is to 



1867] LAUEEL GROVE 303 

locate at some salient point on the St. John's Hiver, where 
I can form the nucleus of a Christian neighborhood, whose 
influence shall be felt far beyond its own limits." 

During this year Mrs. Stowe partially carried her plan 
into execution by hiring an old plantation called "Laurel 
Grove," on the west side of the St. John's River, near 
the present village of Orange Park. Here she established 
her son Frederick as a cotton planter, and here he re- 
mained for two years. The situation did not, however, 
prove entirely satisfactory, nor did the raising of cotton 
prove to be, under the circumstances, a profitable business. 
After visiting Florida towards the spring, at which time her 
attention was drawn to the beauties and superior advan- 
tages of Mandarin on the east side of the river, Mrs. Stowe 
wrote from Hartford to Rev. Charles Beecher : — 

My dear Brother, — We are now thinking seriously 
of a place in Mandarin much more beautiful than any 
other in the vicinity. It has on it five large date palms, 
an olive-tree in full bearing, besides a fine orange grove 
which this year will yield about seventy-five thousand 
oranges. If we get that, then I want you to consider the 
expediency of buying the one next to it. It contains 
about two hundred acres of land, on which is a fine orange 
grove, the fruit from which last year brought in two thou- 
sand dollars as sold at the wharf. It is right on the river, 
and four steamboats pass it each week, on their way to 
Savannah and Charleston. There is on the place a very 
comfortable cottage, as houses go out there, where they do 
not need to be built as substantially as with us. 

I am now in correspondence with the Bishop of Florida, 
with a view to establishing a line of churches along the 
St. John's River, and if I settle at Mandarin, it will be 
one of my stations. Will you consent to enter the Epis- 
copal Church and be our clergyman? You are just the 



304 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1867 

man we want. If my tastes and feelings did not incline 
me toward the Church, I should still choose it as the best 
system for training immature minds such as those of our 
negroes. The system was composed with reference to the 
wants of the laboring class of England, at a time when 
they were as ignorant as our negroes now are. 

I long to be at this work, and cannot think of it with- 
out my heart burning within me. Still I leave all with 
my God, and only hope He will open the way for me to 
do all that I want to for this poor people. 

Affectionately yours, H. B. Stowe. 

"Mrs. Stowe," writes her son, "had some years before 
this joined the Episcopal Church, for the sake of attend- 
ing the same communion as her daughters, who were Epis- 
copalians." This change was not remarkable when we 
remember that Mrs. Stowe 's mother was an Episcopalian. 
Henry Ward Beecher said of their mother: "She was born 
in the Episcopal church, and while a devout adherent to 
that faith and government married my father. She was 
a sensible woman, evinced not only by that but by the 
fact that she united herself to the Congregational church 
in Litchfield. She was a woman of extraordinary graces 
and gifts; a woman not demonstrative, with a profound 
philosophical nature and of wonderful depth of affection, 
but with a serenity that was simply charming. While my 
father was in the early religious experience under Calvin- 
istic teaching, debating and swelling and floating here and 
there and tormenting himself, she threw the oil of faith 
and trust on the waters, and they were quieted, for she 
trusted in God. ' ' Their brother Charles did not, however, 
see fit to change his creed, and though he went to Flor- 
ida, he settled a hundred and sixty miles west from the 
St. John's River, at Newport, near St. Marks, on the Gulf 
coast, and about twenty miles from Tallahassee. Here 



1867] MANDARIN 305 

he lived every winter and several summers for fifteen 
years, and here he left the impress of his own remarkably 
sweet and lovely character upon the scattered population 
of the entire region. 

"Mrs. Stowe in the mean time purchased the property, 
with its orange grove and comfortable cottage, that she 
had recommended to him, and thus Mandarin became her 
winter home. No one who has ever seen it can forget the 
peaceful beauty of this Florida home and its surroundings. 
The house, a story and a half cottage of many gables, 
stands on a bluff overlooking the broad St. John's, which 
is five miles wide at this point. It nestles in the shade 
of a grove of superb, moss-hung live-oaks, around one of 
which the front piazza is built. Several fine old orange- 
trees also stand near the cottage, scenting the air with the 
sweet perfume of their blossoms in the early spring, and 
offering their golden fruit to whoever may choose to pluck 
it during the winter months. Back of the house stretches 
the well-tended orange grove in which Mrs. Stowe took 
such genuine pride and pleasure. Everywhere about the 
dwelling and within it were flowers and singing birds, while 
the rose garden in front, at the foot of the bluff, was the 
admiration of all who saw it." 

Her own times for going and coming were somewhat 
uncertain, depending upon her work, upon printers, bind- 
ers, and publishers ; also, perchance, upon the weather and 
the state of her own health. She wrote to Mrs. Howard : 
" I have been very hard driven of late, owing to a promise 
inadvertently given to a publishing firm here in Hartford 
that I would get a book called ' Men of our Times ' ready 
for them this fall. I have been obliged to stop printing 
my story, and work incessantly to get that off my hands, 
and have written so much every day that to write even a 
note in addition seemed more than I could do." 



306 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1867 

Nevertheless in one of her pleasant familiar letters to 
me she gives the following cheerful picture : — 

"My conservatory is doing splendidly. I vpish you 
could see two crimson camellias on one stem that are open- 
ing now in front of my door as I sit writing. My ferns 
and ivies that I brought from Brooklyn are all doing well, 
— my bulbs all asleep in pots under a blanket of earth 
four inches deep in the cellar. I shall expect them vip 
about January, and in February shall have a gay time with 
them." 

At last, having an accessible home in the pleasant city 
of Hartford, strangers and travelers often sought and found 
her. In one of her familiar notes she says : " The Amber- 
leys have written that they are coming to us to-morrow, 
and of all times, accordingly, our furnace must spring a 
leak. We are hoping to make all right before they get 
here, but I am really ashamed to show such weather at 
this time of year. Poor America! It 's like having your 
mother expose herself by a fit of ill temper before strangers. 
. . . Do, I beg, write to a poor sinner laboring under a 
book." And again, a little later: " TAe book is almost 
done — hang it ! but done well, and will be a good thing 
for young men to read, and young women too, and so I '11 
send you one. You '11 find some things in it, I fancy, 
that I know and you don't, about the times before you 
were born, when I was ' Hush, hush, my dearing ' in Cin- 
cinnati. ... I smell spring afar ofi' — sniff — do you 1 
Any smell of violets in the distance? I think it comes 
over the water from the Pamfili Doria." 

It was during one of Mrs. Stowe's visits to Boston 
about this time that she chanced to talk with greater 
fullness and openness than she had done before on the 
subject of Spiritualism. In the simplest way she affirmed 
her entire belief in possible manifestations of the nearness 
and individual life of those who had passed to the unseen 



1868] SPIRITUALISM 307 

world and gave vivid illustrations of the reasons why her 
faith was thus assured. She never sought after such testi- 
mony unless she found herself sitting with others who 
were interested and who wished to try experiments, but 
her conclusions were definite and unvarying. At that 
period such a declaration of faith required a good deal of 
bravery; now the subject has assumed a different phase 
and there are few thinking persons who do not recognize 
a certain truth hidden within the shadows. She spoke with 
tender seriousness of such manifestations as are recorded 
in the Old and New Testament. Her husband had pos- 
sessed the peculiar power from his early youth of seeing 
persons moving about him who could not be perceived by 
others. These visions were so distinct that it was impos- 
sible for him to distinguish at times between the real and 
the unreal. I recall one illustration which had occurred 
only a few years previous to their departure from Andover. 
She had been called to Boston one day on business. 
Making her preparations hurriedly, she bade the household 
farewell, and rushed to the station, only to see the train 
go out as she arrived. There was nothing to do but to 
return home and wait patiently for the next train; but 
wishing not to be disturbed, she quietly opened a side 
door and crept noiselessly up the staircase leading to her 
own room, sitting down by her writing-table in the win- 
dow. She had been seated about half an hour when Pro- 
fessor Stowe came in, looked about him with a preoccupied 
air, but did not speak to her. She thought his behavior 
strange, and amused herself by watching him; at last the 
situation became so extraordinary that she began to laugh. 
"Why," he exclaimed, with a most astonished air, "is 
that you 1 I thought it was one of my visions ! " 

Mrs. Stowe wrote out one day for her children her own 
mature views upon the subject of Spiritualism. She 
says : — 



308 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 

" Each friend takes away a portion of ourselves. There 
was some part of our heing related to him as to no other, 
and we had things to say to him which no other would 
understand or appreciate. A portion of our thoughts has 
become useless and burdensome, and again and again, with 
involuntary yearning, we turn to the stone at the door of 
the sepulchre. We lean against the cold, silent marble, but 
there is no answer; no voice, neither any that regardeth. 

"There are those who would have us think that in 
our day this doom is reversed; that there are those who 
have the power to restore to us the communion of our lost 
ones. How many a heart, wrung and tortured with the 
anguish of this fearful silence, has throbbed with strange, 
vague hopes at the suggestion ! When we hear sometimes 
of persons of the strongest and clearest minds becoming 
credulous votaries of certain spiritualist circles, let us not 
wonder: if we inquire, we shall almost always find that 
the belief has followed some stroke of death; it is only an 
indication of the desperation of that heart-hunger which 
in part it appeases. 

"Ah, were it true! Were it indeed so that the wall 
between the spiritual and material is growing thin, and a 
new dispensation germinating in which communion with 
the departed blest shall be among the privileges and possi- 
bilities of this our mortal state ! Ah, were it so that when 
we go forth Aveeping in the gray dawn, bearing spices and 
odors which we long to pour forth for the beloved dead, 
we should indeed find the stone rolled away and an angel 
sitting on it! 

"But for us the stone must be rolled away by an un- 
questionable angel, whose countenance is as the lightning, 
who executes no doubtful juggle by pale moonlight or 
starlight, but rolls back the stone in fair, open morning, 
and sits on it. Then we could bless God for his mighty 
gift, and with love, and awe, and reverence take up that 



1868] MATURE VIEWS UPON SPIRITUALISM 309 

blessed fellowship with another life, and weave it rever- 
ently and trustingly into the web of our daily course. 

" But no such angel have we seen, — no such sublime, 
unquestionable, glorious manifestation. And when we 
look at what is offered to us, ah! who that has friends 
in heaven could wish them to return in such wise as this ? 
The very instinct of a sacred sorrow seems to forbid that 
our beautiful, our glorified ones should stoop lower than 
even to the medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and 
rap, and squeak, and perform mountebank tricks with 
tables and chairs; to recite over in weary sameness harm- 
less truisms, which we were wise enough to say for our- 
selves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through 
endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, 
if this be communion with the dead, we had rather be 
without it. We want something a little in advance of our 
present life, and not below it. We have read with some 
attention weary pages of spiritual communication purport- 
ing to come from Bacon, Swedenborg, and others, and long 
accounts from divers spirits of things seen in the spirit 
land, and we can conceive of no more appalling prospect 
than to have them true. 

"If the future life is so weary, stale, flat, and unprofit- 
able as we might infer from these readings, one would have 
reason to deplore an immortality from which no suicide 
could give an outlet. To be condemned to such eternal 
prosing would be worse than annihilation. 

"Is there, then, no satisfaction for this craving of the 
soul ? There is One who says : ' I am he that liveth and 
was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have 
the keys of hell and of death ; ' and this same being said 
once before: 'He that loveth me shall be loved of my 
Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself unto 
him. ' This is a promise direct and personal ; not confined 
to the first apostles, but stated in the most general way as 



310 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 

attainable by any one who loves and does the will of 
Jesus, It seems given to us as some comfort for the un- 
avoidable heart-breaking separations of death that there 
should be, in that dread unknown, one all-powerful Friend 
with whom it is possible to commune, and from whose 
spirit there may come a response to us. Our Elder Bro- 
ther, the partaker of our nature, is not only in the spirit 
land, but is all-powerful there. It is He that shutteth 
and no man openeth, and openeth and no man shutteth. 
He whom we have seen in the flesh, weeping over the 
grave of Lazarus, is He who hath the keys of hell and of 
death. If we cannot commune with our friends, we can 
at least commune with Him to whom they are present, 
who is intimately with them as with us. He is the true 
bond of union between the spirit world and our souls; and 
one blest hour of prayer, when we draw near to Him and 
feel the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of 
that love of his that passeth knowledge, is better than all 
those incoherent, vain, dreamy glimpses with which long- 
ing hearts are cheated, 

"They who have disbelieved all spiritual truth, who 
have been Sadduceeic doubters of either angel or spirit, 
may find in modern spiritualism a great advance. But 
can one who has ever really had communion with Christ, 
who has said with John, ' Truly our fellowship is with 
the Father and the Son, ' — can such an one be satisfied 
with what is found in the modern circle ? 

"Let us, then, who long for communion with spirits, 
seek nearness to Him who has promised to speak and com- 
mune, leaving forever this word to his church : — 

" ' I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to 
you,'" 

In these busy years she went away upon her Boston 
trips more and more rarely, but she writes after her return 



1868] BOSTON 311 

from one of them: "I don't think I ever enjoyed Boston 
so much as in this visit. Why was it ? Every cloud seemed 
to turn out its silver lining, everybody was delightful, and 
the music has really done me good. I feel it all over 
me now. I think of it with a sober certainty of waking 
bliss ! Our little ' hub ' is a grand ' hub. ' Three cheers 
for it! . . . I have had sent me through the War Depart- 
ment a French poem which I think is full of real nerve 
and strength of feeling. I undertook the reading only as 
a duty, but found myself quite waked up. The indig- 
nation and the feeling with which the author denounces 
modern skepticism, that worst of all unbelief, the denial 
of all good, all beauty, all generosity, all heroism, is splen- 
did. He is a live man this, and I wish you would read 
his poem and send it to Longfellow, for it does one's heart 
good to see the French made the vehicle of so much real 
heroic sentiment. The description of a slave hunt ?<=! 
splendidly and bitterly satirical and indignant and full of 
fine turns of language. Thank God that is over. No 
matter what happens to you and me, that great burden of 
sin and misery has tumbled off from our backs and rolled 
into the sepulchre, where it shall never arise more. . . . 
I have been the most industrious of beings since my re- 
turn, and am steaming away on the obstacle that stands 
between me and my story, which I long to be at. ... I 
want to get one or two special bits of information out of 
Garrison, and so instead of sending my letter at random 
to Boston I will trouble you (who have little or nothing 
to do!) to get this letter to him. My oivn book, instead 
of cooling, boils and bubbles daily and nightly, and I am 
pushing and spurring like fury to get to it. I work like 
a dray-horse, and I '11 never get in such a scrape again. 
It is n't my business to make up books, but to make them. 
I have lots to say." 

The story which had so taken possession of her mind 



312 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 

and heart was "Old town Folks," the one which she at 
the time fancied the hest calculated of all her works to 
sustain the reputation of the author of "Uncle Tom's 
Cahin." The many proofs of her own interest in it seem 
to show that she had been moved to a livelier and deeper 
satisfaction in this creation than in any of her later pro- 
ductions. She writes respecting it: "It is more to me 
than a story; it is my resume of the whole spirit and body 
of New England, a country that is now exerting such an 
influence on the civilized world that to know it truly be- 
comes an object." But there were weary lengths of roads 
to be traveled, by a woman already overladen with respon- 
sibilities and in delicate health, before such a book could 
reach its consummation. 

"I must cry you mercy," she begins one of the notes 
to her publisher, and explain my condition to you as well 
5*= possible. " The " condition " was frequently to be ex- 
plained ! Proofs were not ready when they were promised, 
the press was stopped, and both author and publisher re- 
quired all the tender regard they really had for each other 
and all the patience they possessed to keep in tune. She 
says, "I am sorry to trouble you or derange your affairs, 
but one can't always tell in driving such horses as we drive 
where they are going to bring up." 

She started off in this long journey very hopefully, 
writing that she would like to begin printing at once, be- 
cause "to have the first part of my book in type Avill 
greatly assist me in the last." A month later she writes: 
"Here goes the first of my nameless story, of which I can 
only say it is as unlike everything else as it is like the 
strange world of folks I took it from. There is no fear 
that there will not be as much matter as ' Uncle Tom's 
Cabin ; ' there will. There could be an endless quantity 
if I only said all I can see and think that is strange and 
curious. I partake in 's disappointment that it is 



1868] THE BURDEN OF AUTHORS 313 

not done, but it is of that class of things that cannot be 
commanded; as my friend Sam Lawson (vide MSS.) says, 
* There 's things that can be druv and then agin there 's 
things that can't,' and this is that kind; as had to be 
humored. Instead of rushing on, I have often turned 
back and written over with care, that nothing that I 
wanted to say might be omitted; it has cost me a good 
deal of labor to elaborate this first part, namely, to build 
my theatre and to introduce my actors. My labor has all, 
however, been given to the literary part. My printers 
always inform me that I know nothing of punctuation, and 
I give thanks that I have no responsibility for any of its 
absurdities! Further than beginning my sentence with 
a capital, I go not, — so I hope my friend Mr. Bigelow, 
who is a direct and lineal descendant of ' my Grandmo- 
ther, ' will put those things all right. " 

Who so well as authors can fully understand and sym- 
pathize with the burden of a long story in the head, long 
bills on the table, tempting offers to write for this and 
that in order to bring in two hundred dollars from a 
variety of pleasant editors who desire the name on their 
list, house and grounds to be looked after, cooks to be 
pacified, visits to be made — it is no wonder that Mrs. 
Stowe wrote: "The thing has been an awful tax and 
labor, for I have tried to do it well. I say also to you 
confidentially, that it has seemed as if every private care 
that could hinder me as woman and mother has been 
crowded into just this year that I have had this to do." 

Happily more peaceful days were in store for her. Her 
daughters, now grown to womanhood, were beginning to 
take the reins of home work and government into their 
own hands; and as the darkest hour foreruns the dawn, 
so almost imperceptibly to herself her cares began to fade 
away from her. 

A new era opened in Mrs. Stowe's life when she made 



314 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 

her first visit to Florida. She was tired and benumhed 
with care and cold. Suddenly the thought came to her 
that she would go to the South, herself, and see what the 
stories were worth which she was constantly hearing about 
its condition. In the mean time, if she could, she would 
enjoy the soft air, and find retirement in which she might 
continue her book. She says in one of her letters : — 

"Winter weather and cold seem always a kind of night- 
mare to me. I am going to take my writing-desk and go 

down to Florida to F 's plantation, where we have 

now a home, and abide there until the heroic agony of be- 
tweenity, the freeze and thaw of winter, is over, and then 
I doubt not I can write my three hours a day. Mean- 
while, I have a pretty good pile of manuscript. . . . The 
letters I have got about blossoming roses and loungers in 
linen coats, while we have been frozen and snowed up, 
have made my very soul long to be away. Cold weather 
really seems to torpify my brain. I write with a heavy 
numbness. I have not yet had a good spell of writing, 
though I have had all through the story abundant clairvoy- 
ance, and see just how it must be written; but for writing 
some parts I want loarni weather, and not to be in the 
state of a ' froze and thawed apple. ' . . . The cold affects 
me precisely as extreme hot weather used to in Cincinnati, 
— gives me a sort of bilious neuralgia. I hope to get a 
clear, bright month in Florida, when I can say something 
to purpose. 

"I did want to read some of my story to you before I 
went. I have read it to my husband; and though one 
may think a husband a partial judge, yet mine is so ner- 
vous and so afraid of being bored that I feel as if it were 
something to hold him; and he likes it — is quite wake- 
ful, so to speak, about it. All I want now, to go on, is 
a goodi frame, as father used to say about his preaching. 
I want calm, soft, even dreamy, enjoyable weather, sun- 



1868] WORK DELAYED 315 

shine and flowers. Love to dear A , whom I so much 

want to see once more." 

Unhappily, she could not get away so soon as she de- 
sired. There were contracts to be signed and other busi- 
nesses to arrange. These delays made her visit southward 
much shorter than she intended, but it proved to be only 
the introduction, the first brief chapter, as it were, of her 
future winter life in Florida. Before leaving she wrote 
to Mr. Fields : — 

"I am so constituted that it is absolutely fatal to me 
to agree to have any literary work done at certain dates. 
I mean to have this story done by the 1st of September. 
It would be greatly for my pecuniary interest to get it 
done before that, because I have the ofi'er of eight thou- 
sand dollars for the newspaper use of the story I am plan- 
ning to write after it. But I am bound by the laws of 
art. Sermons, essays, lives of distinguished people, I can 
write to order at times and seasons. A story comes, grows 
like a flower, sometimes will and sometimes won't, like 
a pretty woman. When the spirits will help, I can write. 
When they jeer, flout, make faces, and otherwise maltreat 
me, I can only wait humbly at their gates, Avatch at the 
posts of their doors. 

"This story grows even when I do not write. I spent 
a month in the mountains in Stockbridge com^osm^ -bo:ff>re 
I wrote a word. 

" I only ask now a good physical condition, and I go to 
warmer climes hoping to save time there. I put every- 
thing and everybody ofi" that interferes with this, except 
Pussy Willow, which will be a pretty story for a child 
series. " 

At last she sailed away, about the first of March, and 
with that delightful power of knowing what she wanted, 
and being content when she attained her end, which is 
too rare, alas ! her letters glowed and blossomed and shone 



316 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 

with the fruit and flowers and sunshine of the South. It 
was hardly to be expected that her literary work could 
actually reach the printers' hands under these circum- 
stances as rapidly as if she had been able to write at home ; 
therefore it was with no sense of surprise that we received 
from her, during the summer, what proved to be a chapter 
of excuses instead of a chapter of her book: "I have a 
long story to tell you of what has prevented my going 
on with my story, which you must see would so occupy 
all the nerve and brain force I have that I have not been 
able to write a word except to my own children. To them 
in their needs I must write chapters which would other- 
wise go into my novel." 

In the autumn she found herself able to come again to 
Boston for a few days' visit. There were often long 
croonings over the fire far into the night; her other- world- 
liness and abstractions brought with them a dreamy qui- 
etude, especially to those whose harried lives kept them 
only too much awake. Her coming was always a pleasure, 
for she made holidays by her own delightful presence, and 
asked nothing more than what she found in the compan- 
ionship of her friends. 

After her return to Hartford and in December of the 
same year, I find some curious notes showing how easily 
she w^z attracted by new subjects of interest away from 
i/He work she had in hand; not that she saw it in that 
light, or was aware that her story was in the least retarded 
by such digressions, but her keen sympathy with every- 
thing and everybody made it more and more difficult to 
concentrate herself upon the long story she held after all 
to be of the first importance. She writes to the editor of 
the "Atlantic Monthly: " "I see that all the leading maga- 
zines have articles on ' Planchette. ' 

" There is a lady of my acquaintance who has developed 
more remarkable facts in this way than any I have ever 



1868] SCATTERED POWER 317 

seen; I have kept a record of these communications for 
some time past, and everybody is very much struck with 
them. 

"I have material to prepare a very curious article. 
Shall you want it ? And when ? " 

We can imagine the feeling of a publisher waiting for 
copy of her promised story on reading this note! Also 
the following of a few days later: — 

" I am beginning a series of articles called ' Learning to 
Write,' designed to be helpful to a great many beginners. 
... I shall instance Hawthorne as a model and speak of 
his ' Note-Book ' as something which every young author 
aspiring to write should study. . . . My materials for the 
* Planchette ' article are really very extraordinary, . . . 
but I don't want to write it now when I am driving so 
hard upon my book. ... It costs some patience to you 
and certainly to me to have it take so long, yet I have 
conscientiously done all I could, since I began. Now the 
end of it is in plain sight, but there is a good deal to be 
done to bring it out worthily, and I work upon it steadily 
and daily. I never put so much work into anything be- 
fore. " 

A week later she says again : — 

"I thank you very much for your encouraging words, 
for I really need them. I have worked so hard that I 
am almost tired. I hope that you will still continue to 
read, and that you will not find it dull. ... I have re- 
ceived the books. What a wonderful fellow Hawthorne 
was ! " 

Happily the time was near for a second flight to Florida, 
and she wrote with her own rested hand en route from 
Charleston : — 

"Room fragrant with violets, banked up in hyacinths, 
flowers everywhere, windows open, birds singing." 

She inclosed some fans, upon which she had been paint- 



318 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1869 

ing flowers busily during the journey in order to send 
them back to Boston to be sold at a fair in behalf of the 
Cretans: "Make them do the Cretes all the good you 
can," she said. 

"At last," she writes a few days later, "after waiting a 
day and a half in Charleston, we arrived at Mandarin about 
ten o'clock Saturday morning, just a week from the day 
we sailed. The house looked so pretty, and quiet, and 
restful, the day was so calm and lovely, it seemed as 
though I had passed away from all trouble, and was look- 
ing back upon you all from a secure resting-place. Mr. 
Stowe is very happy here, and is constantly saying how 
pleasant it is, and how glad he is that he is here. He is 
so much improved in health that already he is able to take 
a considerable walk every day. 

"We are all well, contented, and happy, and we have 
six birds, two dogs, and a pony. Do write more and 
oftener. Tell me all the little nothings and nowheres. 
You can't imagine how they are magnified by the time 
they have reached into this remote corner." 

In the summer a new experience came to her. The 
death of Lady Byron a few years before had closed an epi- 
sode in Mrs. Stowe's earthly affections. Lady Byron pos- 
sessed for her a strong personal fascination. She said 
once: "When I was first introduced to her I felt in a 
moment the words of her husband : — 

" There was awe in the homage that she drew; 
Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne." 

It was altogether natural that with Mrs. Stowe's tem- 
perament and the sincere affection which ripened between 
her and Lady Byron, she should have attempted after her 
death to try to prove to the world the exceptional purity 
of her character and her devotion to her marriage oath. 
Mrs. Stowe wrote to Dr. Holmes upon this subject: — 



1869] LADY BYRON'S STORY 319 

Hartford, June 26, 1869. 

Dear Doctor, — I am going to ask help of you, and 
I feel that confidence in your friendship that leads me to 
be glad that I have a friend like you to ask advice of. In 
order that you may understand fully what it is, I must go 
back some years and tell you about it. 

When I went to England the first time, I formed a 
friendship with Lady Byron which led to a somewhat in- 
teresting correspondence. When there the second time, 
after the publication of "Dred" in 1856, Lady Byron 
wrote to me that she wished to have some private con- 
fidential conversation with me, and invited me to come 
spend a day with her at her country seat near London. 
I went, met her alone, and spent an afternoon with her. 
The object of the visit she then explained to me. She 
was in such a state of health that she considered she had 
very little time to live, and was engaged in those duties 
and reviews which every thoughtful person finds who is 
coming deliberately, and with their eyes open, to the 
boundaries of this mortal life. 

Lady Byron, as you must perceive, has all her life lived 
under a weight of slanders and false imputations laid upon 
her by her husband. Her own side of the story has been 
told only to that small circle of confidential friends who 
needed to know it in order to assist her in meeting the exi- 
gencies which it imposed on her. Of course it has thrown 
the sympathy mostly on his side, since the world generally 
has more sympathy with impulsive incorrectness than with 
strict justice. 

At that time there was a cheap edition of Byron's works 
in contemplation, meant to bring them into circulation 
among the masses, and the pathos arising from the story 
of his domestic misfortunes was one great means relied on 
for giving it currency. 

Under these circumstances some of Lady Byron's friends 



320 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1869 

had proposed the question to her whether she had not a 
responsibility to society for the truth; whether she did 
right to allow these persons to gain influence over the 
popular mind by a silent consent to an utter falsehood. 
As her whole life had been passed in the most heroic self- 
abnegation and self-sacrifice, the question was now pro- 
posed to her whether one more act of self-denial was not 
required of her, namely, to declare the truth, no matter 
at what expense to her own feelings. 

For this purpose she told me she wished to recount the 
whole story to a person in whom she had confidence, — a 
person of another country, and out of the whole sphere of 
personal and local feelings which might be supposed to 
influence those in the country and station in life where the 
events really happened, — in order that I might judge 
whether anything more was required of her in relation to 
this history. 

The interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed 
confession, and Lady Byron told me the history which I 
have embodied in an article to appear in the "Atlantic 
Monthly." I have been induced to prepare it by the run 
which the Guiccioli book is having, which is from first to 
last an unsparing attack on Lady Byron's memory by Lord 
Byron's mistress. 

When you have read my article, I want, not your advice 
as to whether the main facts shall be told, for on this 
point I am so resolved that I frankly say advice would do 
me no good. But you might help me, with your delicacy 
and insight, to make the manner of telling more perfect, 
and I want to do it as wisely and well as such story can 
be told." 

Dr. Holmes mentions the subject several times in writ- 
ing to his friend Lothrop Motley. "Mr. Fields was 
absent in Europe," he says, "and his sub-editor, fearing 



1869] COERESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYRON 321 

to lose Mrs. Stowe as a contributor altogether, assented to 
her request to print the Byron paper." In another letter 
he writes: "We have had three storms this autumn: first, 
the great gale of September 8, which I recognized while it 
was blowing as the greatest for fifty-four years, for you 
remember that I remember the September gale; second, 
the Byron whirlwind, which began here and swiftly traveled 
across the Atlantic; and third, the gold-storm, as I chris- 
tened the terrible financial conflict of the last week." 

That Lady Byron should herself have contemplated the 
publication of the statements made to Mrs. Stowe just 
before her death and should have sought her advice on 
the subject, proves how deeply she had suffered. Mrs. 
Stowe and her sister advised against this step, but all 
the more we can conceive of the responsibility accepted 
by Mrs. Stowe in saving her friend from public obloquy 
at the moment of her failing health. In finally answering 
Lady Byron's question Mrs. Stowe wrote: — 

On that subject on which you spoke to me the last time 
we were together, I have thought often and deeply, I 
have changed my mind somewhat. Considering the pecu- 
liar circumstances of the case, I could wish that the sacred 
veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the past, should 
never be withdrawn during the time that you remain with 
us. I would say then, leave all with some discreet 
friends, who, after both have passed from earth, shall say 
what was due to justice. I am led to think this by seeing 
how low, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; 
and I would not that what I so much respect, love, and 
revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, 
which pollutes what it touches. The day will yet come 
which will bring to light every hidden thing. "There is 
nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid 
that shall not be known;" and so justice will not fail. 



322 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1869 

Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different from 
what they were since first I heard that strange, sad history. 
Meanwhile I love you forever, whether we meet again on 
earth or not. 

Affectionately yours, H. B. S. 

The subject lay in abeyance in Mrs. Stowe's mind for 
several years after Lady Byron's death until the publica- 
tion of the Guiccioli memoirs, succeeded by an article in 
"Blackwood's Magazine," where Lady Byron was spoken 
of in a way to sting Mrs. Stowe to the quick. 

Nothing more was needed. She arranged the state- 
ments given her by Lady Byron and published them in 
the "Atlantic Monthly," showing them, as we have seen, 
to Dr. Holmes. 

To a more worldly minded person such a step would 
have been impossible, but to Mrs. Stowe's love and to her 
sense of right nothing was impossible, and she braved the 
world for her friend's sake, hardly knowing that she was 
brave. She always spoke and behaved as if she recognized 
herself to be an instrument breathed upon by the Divine 
Spirit. When we consider how this idea absorbed her 
to the prejudice of what appeared to others a wholesome 
exercise of human will and judgment, it is not wonderful 
that the world was offended when she made conclusions 
contrary to the opinion of the public, and thought best to 
publish them. But the world could not understand the 
motives which moved her. 

She wrote to Mrs. Howard: "It is worth while to have 
a storm of abuse once in a while, for one reason to read 
the Psalms, — they are a radiant field of glory that never 
shines unless the night shuts in. Sometimes in my sleep 
I have such nearness to the blessed, it is almost as if one 
voice after another whispers to me, ' Thou shalt tread upon 
the lion and the adder. ' ' The eternal God is thy refuge, 



1869] PUBLICATION OF OLDTOWN FOLKS 323 

and underneath thee are the everlasting arms. ' . . . It 's 
worth while to have trouhle to have friends stand by one 
as mine do by me. . . . Depend upon it, the spirit of the 
Lord did n't pitch me into this seething caldron for nothing, 
and the Son of Man walketh with me in the fire. Eter- 
nal right and justice are with me and I shall triumph by 
and by on the other side of the river and here too. . . . 
Your letter and one from Sister Mary gave me more sup- 
port than any other. At first I thought the world's people 
must have all lost their senses, — or I — Could that 
account be called uncalled-for ! " 

One is reminded in all this of Tennyson's lines written 
at about the same epoch, where Arthur says : — 

"And some among you held, that if the Bang 
Had seen the sight he woiiki have sworn the vow; 
Not easily, seeing that the King must guard 
That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
To whom a space of land is given to plough, 
Who may not wander from the allotted field 
Before his work be done ; but being done 
Let visions of the night or of the day 
Come as they will . . . 
In moments when he feels he cannot die." 

Perhaps a deeper sense of reverence for poetic genius 
with which alone the world has learned to concern itself 
in regard to Byron, would have suggested continued silence 
and the Scripture warning, "Vengeance is mine, saith the 
Lord ; " but Mrs. Stowe felt her message as from the Most 
High, and who are we to condemn her? 

Meanwhile her legitimate work, "Oldtown Folks," for 
which the publishers had impatiently waited long after the • 
promised time, was at length fairly ofi" her hands. The 
book was published in the spring or early summer, and she 
was free once more. 

During the following winter she appeared to enjoy Man- 
darin with peculiar zest, and wrote contentedly therefrom 
save for a vision of having to go to Canada in the early 
spring to obtain the copyright of her story. 



324 HAKKIET BEECHEK STOWE [1870 

The visits to Florida had now become necessary to her 
health, and before long she perceived that to pass the 
entire season there, and to surrender her large house in 
Hartford, was the next step for her to take. She wrote: 
"I am leaving the land of flowers on the 1st of June with 
tears in my eyes; but having a house in Hartford, it must 

be lived in. I wish you and would just come to see 

it. You have no idea what a lovely place it has grown to 
be, and I am trying to sell it as hard as a snake to crawl 
out of his skin. Thus on, till reason is pushed out of life. 
There 's no earthly sense in having anything, — lordy 
massy, no! By the bye, I must delay sending you "The 
Ghost in the Captain Brown House " till I can go to Natick, 
and make a personal inspection of the premises and give it 
to you hot." 

Her busy brain was again at work with new plans for 
future books and articles for magazines. "Gladly would 
I fly to you on the wings of the wind," she says, "but I 
am a slave, a bound thrall to work, and I cannot work 
and play at the same time. After this year I hope to 
have a little rest, and above all things I won't be ham- 
pered with a serial to write. . . . We have sold out in 
Hartford." 

All this routine of labor was to have a new form of in- 
terruption, which gave her intense joy. "I am doing just 
what you say," she wrote, "being first lady-in-waiting on 
his new majesty. He is very pretty, very gracious and 
good, and his little mamma and he are a pair. ... I am 
getting to be an old fool of a grandma, and to think there 
is no bliss under heaven to compare with a baby," Later 
she wrote on the same subject: "You ought to see my 
baby. I have discovered a way to end the woman contro- 
versy. Let the women all say that they won't take care 
of the babies till the laws are altered. One week of this 
discipline would bring all the men on their marrow-bones. 



1870] ONE OF THE HARDEST YEARS OF HER LIFE 325 

Only tell us what you want, they would say, and we will 
do it. Of course you may imagine me trailing after our 
little king, — first granny-in-waiting. " 

Only those who have followed Mrs. Stowe through 
the exciting episodes of her life can know what the repose 
of those winters in Florida became to her. Her human 
interests were still fed and nourished by her wish to help 
the freed people and to build a church for them, and poor 
as she was herseK at this time, she was able through her 
busy pen and by writing letters to her friends to get 
money enough together to carry out her projects for them. 
But she was removed from much of the stress and strain of 
life in New England. In spite of all her previous labors 
the year 1870 was one of the hardest of her life. She 
writes fully on the question to young Mr. Howard, who 
was not only her friend, but also a member of a publishing 
firm and one of the editors of the "Christian Union: " — 

Mandarin, February, 1870. 

George Eliot writes me that she and Mr. Lewes have 
both read Henry's sermon, and, lying on their parlor table, 
it has often been borrowed and read. ... I was encour- 
aged, and have sent her another lately on " The Comforting 
God." They have just lost a son, — his son, not hers, 
— but she is a warm-hearted, devoted woman, and was 
attached to him as a mother. It is the real religious ele- 
ment, the deep reality of a life in God that gives these 
things their power, that must give your paper its distinc- 
tive power, if it is to have any. Every denomination has 
its paper, — but there is a yearning after a centralizing 
point, a point where all shall feel themselves one. That 
feeling is the one to which a new religious paper may 
address itself with mighty power. 

I wish I could settle on a story. I am like a spider 
that is puzzled where to attach its threads for a web. 



326 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 

She had invested, she tells him, thirty-four thousand 
dollars in various ways, none of which could give her any 
immediate income. She had persuaded Professor Stowe 
to give up his position in Andover, which she thought too 
laborious for him, and of course, in consequence, any men- 
tion of her difficulties to him was out of the question. 
There was probably no human being except Mr. Howard 
to whom she could confide her anxieties and troubles, and 
she pours herself out to him. During the three previous 
years Mr. Fields had given her ten thousand dollars for 
"Oldtown Folks," — much of it in prepayments, that she 
might write with a mind at leisure. This sum was not suf- 
ficient, it appeared, in sj)ite of her calculations, and much 
to her publisher's dismay she had undertaken, as we have 
seen, the editorship of "Men of our Times," the comple- 
tion of "The Pearl of Orr's Island," and had contemplated 
other projects, while her story sometimes halted altogether, 
and sometimes progressed under conditions of extreme ex- 
haustion. 

All these conditions were renewed with Mr. Howard. 
She was deeply solicitous for the success of the "Christian 
Union," of which her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was 
called the editor, and where his sermons were published. 
She believed that a good religious paper was necessary, 
and she was willing to write for it, as she said, for no- 
thing. On the other hand she had no income for the 
year. If she would promise a serial story, she asked him, 
would he guarantee her a certain sum of money every 
month? Would he accept some very interesting papers 
from her husband on the Old Testament, to be counted at 
the same value as her own work? Would he remember 
how deeply she believed in the necessity of the strictly 
religious character of the paper and allow her to write a 
series of unsigned articles on religious topics only ? In- 
deed, with her poor, tired little hand she wrote a volume 



1870] FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 327 

of letters to Mr. Howard during the year, showing the 
anxieties which beset her. 

"My investment in this Southern place," she wrote, "is 
still one whose returns are in the future, and so, as I say, 
I need to use my talents to bring an immediate return for 
a year or two; " and again she says, "My mind is bubbling 
and boiling, and I think of so many stories I could write 
that I don't settle upon any." "I see," she writes again, 
"you have advertised a serial story from me as one of the 
attractions of the year to come, and I ought therefore to 
be thinking what to write. On looking back to the time 
when ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' came forth, I see myself then 
a woman with no particular capital of reputation, driven 
to write then as now by the necessity of making some 
income for family expenses. In this mood, with a mind 
burning with the wrongs of slavery, I undertook to write 
some loose sketches of slave life in the ' National Era, ' and 
out of that attempt grew ' Uncle Tom's Cabin. ' If there 
had been a grand preparatory blast of trumpets or had it 
been announced that Mrs. Stowe would do this or that, I 
think it likely I could not have written; but nobody ex- 
pected anything, nobody said anything, and so I wrote 
freely. Now what embarrasses me is to be announced as 
an attraction, — to have eyes fixed on me, and people all 
waiting. ... I have a desire, a longing to express myself 
once more on a certain subject, but a story ought to groiv 
out of one's heart like a flower and not be measured off by 
the yard. . . . There is a misery — a desolation — an 
anguish deeper than that of the slave; there is a cause 
where every soul ought to be roused, but how to do it? 
Temperance stories have been thick as pigweed in rich 
land. I think I see how a better one could be written, 
but am not sure yet," — and thus the painful efi'ort 
went on in her mind. Sometimes she wished to write 
about the church, sometimes about society, but something 



328 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 

which publishers and editors needed enough to give her a 
salary, that was what she must find. Mr. Howard did 
everything in his power, but the result was she wrote 
continually upon whatever subject moved her. There was 
one story called "My Wife and I," which fulfilled the 
promise of the much hated advertisement, but she threw 
the weight of her influence upon the religious character 
of the paper and also secured some valuable contributors. 
"To have a paper," she wrote, "that, passing with the 
power of a strong magnet over the confused heap of mod- 
ern thought, shall make every fragment of pure Christian 
faith start up and show itself, and come into such near- 
ness that the furnace of love may smelt them all together, 
that would be something worth praying for." She adds, 
"Perhaps it must be ready to lose subscribers or get them 
slowly and not to be a brilliant financial success." 

"I feel, the more I think of it, sx;re that the world, 
that hates Christ is just as real in our times as it was 
in his. Under the various forms of sentimental religion, 
spiritualism, free inquiry, and philanthropic reform, there 
is a spirit working that is not subject to the law of God, 
neither, indeed, can be. How in such a world is a paper, 
the animus of which is that of Christ and the apostles, to 
succeed? I have pondered that question in relation to 
Henry's popularity; but I feel that the world really does 
hate him to a degree that makes it safe to hope that he is 
about right. Such demonstrations as now and then occur 
show that they are only waiting for him to be down to 
spring on him, ... in proportion as he makes Christian- 
ity aggressive on sin they are malignant and spring joy- 
fully on him when their time comes." 

She wrote to Mrs. Howard from Florida in January: 
" I cannot realize what time of year it is. Here the spring 
is coming on with such a rush that there is no time for 
anything. I have been down seeing about my own little 



1870] THE CHURCH BELL 329 

flower garden and setting out the plants I brought down 
from my greenhouse, and have just finished tying up the 
wax plant to the sides of the veranda, where it looks quite 
green and handsome. Yesterday we had service in om 
mission church for the first time. There has been no 
preaching and no religious exercises of any sort except 
those held by the negroes, since last May, except one 
Sunday. Now we have a neat little building that will 
hold three hundred, and yesterday on short notice we got 
quite an audience. Mr. Stowe preached. He is going to 
hold service for the colored folks in the morning. We 
need a bell, as we live so scattered through the woods. I 
wish you would inquire what the cost of a small bell 
would be. It would be a new sound in these woods, and 
if we get it, I shall see that everybody within three miles 
shall awake to the consciousness of a ' first bell ' on Sun- 
day morning and a Sunday - school bell and a ' meeting 
bell.' I bought a little Mason and Hamlin's organ in 

New York and brought it down. H plays, and the 

others make quite a choir in which I humbly join. , . . 
The white school moved into the new building to-day; the 
colored school is not yet organized, but you see we are 
like to have our hands full. . . . We have had an unu- 
sual spell of damp, chilly, sultry weather, which is very 
provoking, as our climate is our only strong point. Flor- 
ida is like a woman whose good temper is her beauty, — 
our sunny days are what must cover a multitude of sins, 
and when we don't have them, of course the sins have no 
cloak. . . . What will the World, the Flesh, and the 
Devil do to Henry now that he won't take twenty thou- 
sand dollars, and yet has had it offered ! 

"I have had a very handsome letter from Professor 
Phelps of Andover, written purposely to express his strong 
unqualified sympathy with my course in the Byron matter. 
The * Congregationalist' has also a strong article. But I 



330 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 

don't dwell on that. It is a duty done and left with God 
who takes care of duties done. I have no more concern 
with it." 

The work of writing her story and other papers promised 
to the "Christian Union" was not accomplished without 
painful delays. In the summer she found herself in a 
weak physical condition. "I must have a little time to 
recuperate before I begin," she wrote Mr. Howard. "I 
should do you no good writing feebly. I am not one of 
those who, if they have three months before them, do 
not write till almost the end. I have all the plod and 
regularity about me of a plough horse, and I have worked 
mostly up towards my engagements, but every hot spell 
has thrown me upon my back and lasts me sometimes a 
week or ten days. It is dangerous to try to write when 
you feel that the brain and spinal system are prostrate or 
inflamed. There is nothing for it but to toait then, and 
thus I am behindhand. ... I know all your burdens 
and worries, and be assured I shall do all I can daily." 

At this time her youngest daughter fell under a nervous 
disease which finally, after many years of intense suffering, 
ended her life. At first it was "sudden and utter prostra- 
tion with nervous sleeplessness and such depression of 
spirits as made her, so gay and buoyant, a distress to look 
at. " The suffering of this illness reacted ujDon Mrs. Stowe, 
occupied all her thought, and prevented her from sleep. 
Happily, as time went on, and she saw her daughter less 
seldom, she was able to return to her work. "I cannot 
positively come imder binding engagements," she says in 
October, "to begin my story next month, yet / think I 
shall be ready, unless such heavy blows of family afflic- 
tions fall as paralyze me. I wanted to begin with a 
month's supply ahead. ... I have not been writing, 
but I have been comjposing the story all this time in the 
intervals of nursing and tending baby, and now I feel a 



1872] UNIVERSAL BENEVOLENCE 331 

degree of assurance respecting it; though I am never san- 
guine in anything, but am a waiter on Providence. 

" The blow has fallen ! My dear brother " (the husband 
of her sister Mary, Thomas C. Perkins) "has left us. No- 
where in the world had I a truer friend. It is a blow 
that strikes deep on my life and makes me feel that it is 
like ice breaking under my feet. Those who truly love us, 
and on whom we can at all times depend, are not many, 
and all my life he has been one of these." 

From this period, although she continued to write, she 
lived chiefly in the retirement of the Florida orange grove, 
which she always enjoyed. Her sympathy was strong 
with the new impetus benevolent work in cities had re- 
ceived, and she helped it from her "grotto" in more ways 
than one. Sometimes she would write soothing or inspir- 
iting letters, as the case might demand, to individuals. 

The following note, written at the time of the Boston 
fire in 1872, will show how alive she was to the need of 
that period. 

"I send inclosed one hundred dollars to the fund for 
the firemen. I could wish it a hundred times as much, 
and then it would be inadequate to express how much I 
honor those brave, devoted men who put their own lives 
between Boston and mine. No soldiers that fell in battle 
for our common country ever deserved of us all greater 
honor than the noble men whose charred and blackened 
remains have been borne from the ruins of Boston; they 
are worthy to be inscribed on imperishable monuments. 

"I would that some such honorary memorial might com- 
memorate their heroism." 

In the autumn we find her writing to her daughters as 
follows regarding her work : — 

"I have at last finished all my part in the third book of 
mine that is to come out this year, to wit, ' Oldtown Fire- 
side Stories,' and you can have no idea what a perfect 



332 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 

luxury of rest it is to be free from all literary engage- 
ments, of all kinds, sorts, or descriptions. I feel like a 
poor woman I once read about, — 

" ' Who always was tired, 
'Cause she lived iu a house 
Where help was n't hired,' 

and of whom it is related that in her dying moments, 

'"She folded her hands 
With her latest endeavor, 
Saj'ing nothing, dear nothing, 
Sweet nothing forever.' 

" I am in about her state of mind. I luxuriate in lazi- 
ness. I do not want to do anything or go anywhere. I 
only want to sink down into lazy enjoyment of living." 

"I am very much gratified," she Avrites Mr. Howard, 
" with the success of ' My Wife and I. ' I get a great many 
more letters about it than I received about anything ex- 
cept ' Uncle Tom. ' An English novelist has purloined my 
title and published ' My Wife and I ' in Queensland. The 
title was a good hit, more shame to him for stealing it. 
When you advertise again there is no harm in saying how 
many you have sold. I like people to know it for very 
many reasons. A letter from the Duchess of Argyll to- 
day, by which it appears she has been reading it." 

She writes, also, to her friend's husband, from Manda- 
rin, after the death of their son Frank: "I hoped fully to 
see him down here, but he has gone where the flowers 
never fade, — 

'' Each new morning ray 
Brings no sigh for yesterday." 

This is my idea of heaven, — a land where we can recall 
nothing to sigh for; the present overpays the past, 

" Of late I have seen the glory so wonderful, — so over- 
powering — that it seems too much to be ours, as if one 
longed to suffer or endure a little something before one is 
weighed down with such an overplus of joy. 



1872] ' GEORGE ELIOT 333 

" Your Frank, like my Henry, was your heart's flower, 
and Christ honored each hy taking them for his bosom. 
When you look over a bush for a flower to wear in your 
bosom, it is not the mildewed or imperfect ones you 
choose, but the very ones whose loss makes the bush 
empty. . . . Oh, my dear brother, think of your blessed- 
ness by my sorrow. Where is my poor Fred ? You know 
where Frank is, and that he is safe and blessed. I never 
forget my boy. Can a woman forget her child ? " 

Her son Frederick had remained on the Florida planta- 
tion which Mrs. Stowe bought for his sake for several 
years. At last he was possessed by the idea that a long 
sea-voyage would do him more good than anything else. 
He sailed away from New York to San Francisco around 
the Horn. His brother says: "That he reached the latter 
city in safety is known; but that is all. No word from 
him or concerning him has ever reached the loving hearts 
that have waited so anxiously for it, and of his ultimate 
fate nothing is known." 

In August Mrs. Stowe writes: "I find it is a good thing 
for me sometimes to fly from place to place, so that I can- 
not think continuously. It shakes out morbid thoughts 
and brooding ones, and my nature is such that I need just 
that to keep the whole stream of thought from running 
inward. I hope I have learned something on the way to 
the ' other and better ' to which we are all hastening. " 

There was at this time a pleasant home at St. John's 
Wood, in London, which possessed peculiar attractions to 
the lovers of best society. Other houses were as comforta- 
ble to look at, other hedges were as green, other drawing- 
rooms were gayer, but this was the home of George Eliot, 
and on Sunday afternoons the resort of those who desired 
the best that London had to give. Here it was that 
she told me of her admiration and deep regard, her afiec- 



334 HAEEIET BEECHEK STOWE [1872 

tion, for Mrs. Stowe. Her reverence and love were ex- 
pressed with such tremulous sincerity that the speaker won 
our hearts by her love for our friend. Many letters had 
already passed between Mrs. Stowe and herself, and she 
confided to us her amusement at a fancy Mrs. Stowe had 
taken that Casaubon, in "Middlemarch," was drawn from 
the character of Mr. Lewes. Mrs. Stowe took it so entirely 
for granted in her letters that it was impossible to dis- 
possess her mind of the illusion. Evidently it was the 
source of much harmless household amusement at St. John's 
Wood, I find in Mrs. Stowe's letters some pleasant allu- 
sions to this correspondence. She writes: "We were all 
full of George Eliot when your note came, as I had re- 
ceived a beautiful letter from her in answer to one I wrote 
from Florida. She is a noble, true woman; and if any- 
body doesn't see it, so much the worse for them, and not 
her." Again Mrs. Stowe says she is coming to Boston, 
and will bring George Eliot's letters with her that we may 
read them together; but that pleasant plan was only one 
of the imagination, and was never carried out. 

Later George Eliot wrote Mrs. Stowe to comfort her anx- 
ieties about the success of " Oldtown Folks " in England : 

"I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as to 
the obstacles your new book (' Oldtown Folks ') may find 
here from its thorough American character. Most readers 
who are likely to be really influenced by writing above the 
common order will find that special aspect an added reason 
for interest and study; and I dare say you have long seen, 
as I am beginning to see with new clearness, that if a book 
which has any sort of exquisiteness happens also to be a 
popular, widely circulated book, the power over the social 
mind for any good is, after all, due to its reception by a 
few appreciative natures, and is the slow result of radiation 
from that narrow circle. I mean that you can affect a 
few souls, and that each of these in turn may affect a few 



1872] LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT 335 

more, but that no exquisite book tells properly and directly 
on a multitude, however largely it may be spread by type 
and paper. Witness the things the multitude will say 
about it, if one is so unhappy as to be obliged to hear their 
sayings. I do not write this cynically, but in pure sad- 
ness and pity. Both traveling abroad and staying at home 
among our English sights and sports, one must continually 
feel how slowly the centuries work toward the moral good 
of men, and that thought lies very close to what you say 
as to your wonder or conjecture concerning my religious 
point of view. I believe that religion, too, has to be 
modified according to the dominant phases; that a religion 
more perfect than any yet prevalent must express less care 
of personal consolation, and the more deeply awing sense 
of responsibility to man springing from sympathy with 
that which of all things is most certainly known to us, — 
the difficulty of the human lot. Letters are necessarily 
narrow and fragmentary, and, when one writes on wide 
subjects, are likely to create more misunderstanding than 
illumination. But I have little anxiety in writing to you, 
dear friend and fellow-laborer; for you have had longer 
experience than I as a writer, and fuller experience as 
a woman, since you have borne children and known a 
mother's history from the beginning. I trust your quick 
and long-taught mind as an interpreter little liable to 
mistake me." 

Mrs. Stowe replies : — 

Mandarin, February 8, 1872. 

Dear Fkiend, — It is two years nearly since I had 
your last very kind letter, and I have never answered be- 
cause two years of constant and severe work have made it 
impossible to give a drop to anything beyond the needs of 
the hour. Yet I have always thought of you, loved you, 
trusted you all the same, and read every little scrap from 
your writing that came to hand. 



336 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 

One thing brings you back to me. I am now in Florida 
in my little hut in the orange orchard, with the broad 
expanse of the blue St. John's in front, and the waving of 
the live-oaks with their long, gray mosses overhead, and 
the bright gold of oranges looking through dusky leaves 
around. It is like Sorrento, — so like that I can quite 
dream of being there. And when I get here I enter an- 
other life. The world recedes — I am out of it; it ceases 
to influence; its bustle and noise die away in the far dis- 
tance ; and here is no winter, an open-air life, — a quaint, 
rude, wild wilderness sort of life, both rude and rich: but 
Avhen I am here I write more letters to friends than ever 
I do elsewhere. The mail comes only twice a week, and 
then is the event of the day. My old rabbi and I here 
set up our tent, he with German, and Greek, and Hebrew, 
devouring all sorts of black-letter books, and I spinning 
ideal webs out of bits that he lets fall here and there. 

I have long thought that I would write you again when 
I got here, and so I do. I have sent North to have them 
send me the "Harper's Monthly," in which your new story 
is appearing, and have promised myself leisurely to devour 
and absorb every word of it. 

In regard to the subject of Spiritualism I am of the 
opinion of Goethe that "it is just as absurd to deny the 
facts of Spiritualism now as it was in the middle ages to 
ascribe them to the devil." 

I think Mr. Owen attributes too much value to his facts. 
I do not think the things contributed from the ultra-mun- 
dane sphere are particularly valuable, apart from the evi- 
dence they give of continued existence after death. 

I do not think there is yet any evidence to warrant the 
idea that they are a supplement or continuation of the 
revelations of Christianity, but I do regard them as an 
interesting and curious study in psychology. ... I am 



J872] KINDLY EECEPTION AT THE SOUTH 337 

perfectly aware of the frivolity and worthlessness of much 
of the revealings purporting to come from spirits. In my 
view, the worth or worthlessness of them has nothing to 
do with the question of fact. 

Do invisible spirits speak in any wise, — wise or fool- 
ish ? — is the question a priori. I do not know of any 
reason why there should not be as many foolish virgins in 
the future state as in this. As I am a believer in the 
Bible and Christianity, I don't need these things as confir- 
mations, and they are not likely to be a religion to me. 
I regard them simply as I do the phenomena of the Aurora 
Borealis, or Darwin's studies on natural selection, as curi- 
ous studies into nature. Besides, I think some day we 
shall find a law by which all these facts will fall into their 
places. 

I hope now this subject does not bore you; it certainly 
is one that seems increasingly to insist on getting itself 
heard. It is going on and on, making converts, who are 
many more than dare avow themselves, and for my part 
I wish it were all brought into the daylight of inquiry. 

Let me hear from you if ever you feel like it. I know 
too well the possibilities and impossibilities of a nature 
like yours to ask more, but it can do you no harm to know 
that I still think of you and love you as ever. 

Faithfully yours, H. B. Stowe. 

Mrs. Stowe paid a visit to her brother Charles in Florida 
during the winter, and, continuing her journey to New 
Orleans, was made to feel how little of bitterness towards 
her was felt by the best class of Southerners. In both 
New Orleans and Tallahassee she was warmly welcomed, 
and tendered public receptions that gave equal pleasure to 
her and to the throngs of cultivated people who attended 
them. She was also greeted everywhere with intense enthu- 
siasm by the colored people, who, whenever they knew of 



338 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 

her coming, thronged the railway stations in order to obtain 
a glimpse of her whom they venerated above all women. 

Finding by George Eliot's former letter that she was 
not quite well, Mrs. Stowe wrote again : — 

(Begun April 4.) Mandarin, Florida, Ma}' 11. 

My dear Friend, — I was very glad to get your dear 
little note, — sorry to see by it that you are not in your 
full physical force. Owing to the awkwardness and mis- 
understanding of publishers, I am not reading "Middle- 
march," as I expected to be, here in these orange shades; 
they don't send it, and I am too far out of the world 
to get it. I felt, when I read your letters, how glad I 
should be to have you here in our Florida cottage, in the 
wholly new, wild, woodland life. Though resembling 
Italy in climate, it is wholly different in the appearance 
of nature, — the plants, the birds, the animals, all differ- 
ent. The green tidiness and culture of England here 
gives way to a wild and rugged savageness of beauty. 
Every tree bursts forth with flowers; wild vines and 
creepers execute delicious gambols, and weave and inter- 
weave in interminable labyrinths. Yet here, in the great 
sandy plains back of our house, there is a constant sense 
of beauty in the wild, wonderful growths of nature. First 
of all, the pines — high as the stone pines of Italy — with 
long leaves, eighteen inches long, through which there is 
a constant dreamy sound, as if of dashing waters. Then 
the live-oaks and the water-oaks, narrow-leaved evergreens, 
which grow to enormous size, and whose branches are 
draped with long festoons of the gray moss. There is a 
great, wild park of these trees back of us, which, with the 
dazzling, varnished green of the new spring leaves and the 
swaying drapery of moss, looks like a sort of enchanted 
grotto. Underneath grow up hollies and ornamental flow- 
ering shrubs, and the yellow jessamine climbs into and 



1872] BEAUTY OF FLORIDA 339 

over everything with fragrant golden bells and buds, so 
that sometimes the foliage of a tree is wholly hidden in its 
embrace. 

This wild, wonderful, bright and vivid growth, that is 
all new, strange, and unknown by name to me, has a 
charm for me. It is the place to forget the outside world, 
and live in one's self. And if you were here, we would 
go together and gather azaleas, and white lilies, and silver 
bells, and blue iris. These flowers keep me painting in 
a sort of madness. I have just finished a picture of white 
lilies that grow in the moist land by the watercourses. I 
am longing to begin on blue iris. Artist, poet as you are 
by nature, you ought to see all these things, and if you 
would come here I would take you in, heart and house, and 
you should have a little room in our cottage. The history 
of the cottage is this: I found a hut built close to a great 
live-oak twenty-five feet in girth, and with overarching 
boughs eighty feet up in the air, spreading like a firma- 
ment, and all swaying with mossy festoons. We began 
to live here, and gradually we improved the hut by lath, 
plaster, and paper. Then we threw out a wide veranda 
all round, for in these regions the veranda is the living- 
room of the house. Ours had to be built around the trunk 
of the tree, so that our cottage has a peculiar and original 
air, and seems as if it were half tree, or a something that 
had grown out of the tree. We added on parts, and have 
thrown out gables and chambers, as a tree throws out new 
branches, till our cottage is like nobody else's, and yet we 
settle into it with real enjoyment. There are all sorts of 
queer little rooms in it, and we are accommodating at this 
present a family of seventeen souls. In front, the beau- 
tiful, grand St. John's stretches five miles from shore to 
shore, and we watch the steamboats plying back and forth 
to the great world we are out of. On all sides, large 
orange-trees, with their dense shade and ever-vivid green, 



340 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 

shut out the sun so that we can sit, and walk, and live in 
the open air. Our winter here is only cool, bracing out- 
door weather, without snow. No month without flowers 
blooming in the open air, and lettuce and peas in the gar- 
den. The summer range is about 90°, but the sea-breezes 
keep the air delightfully fresh. Generally we go North, 
however, for three months of summer. Well, I did not 
mean to run on about Florida, but the subject runs away 
with me, and I want you to visit us in spirit if not per- 
sonally. 

My poor rabbi ! — he sends you some Arabic, which I 
fear you cannot read : on diablerie he is up to his ears in 
knowledge, having read all things in all tongues, from the 
Talmud down. . . . 

Ever lovingly yours, H. B. Stowe. 

Boston, September 26, 1872. 
My dear Friend, — I think when you see my name 
again so soon, you will think it rains, hails, and snows 
notes from this quarter. Just now, however, I am in this 

lovely little nest in Boston, where dear , like a dove, 

"sits brooding on the charmed wave." We are both wish- 
ing we had you here with us, and she has not received any 
answer from you as yet in reply to the invitation you 
spoke of in your last letter to me. It seems as if you 
must have written, and the letter somehow gone astray, 
because I know, of course, you would write. Yesterday 
we were both out of our senses with mingled pity and 
indignation at that dreadful stick of a Casaubon, — and 
think of poor Dorothea dashing like a warm, sunny wave 
against so cold and repulsive a rock ! He is a little too 
dreadful for anything; there does not seem to be a drop 
of warm blood in him, and so, as it is his misfortune and 
not his fault to be cold-blooded, one must not get angry 
with him. It is the scene in the garden, after the inter- 



1872] LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT 341 

view with the doctor, that rests on our mind at this pre- 
sent. There was such a man as he over in Boston, high in 
literary circles, but I fancy his wife wasn't like Dorothea, 
and a vastly proper time they had of it, treating each other 
with mutual reverence, like two Chinese mandarins. 

My love, what I miss in this story is just what we 
would have if you would come to our tumble-down, jolly, 
improper, but joyous country, — namely, "jollitude." 
You write and live on so high a plane ! It is all self- 
abnegation. We want to get you over here, and into this 
house, where, with closed doors, we sometimes make the 
rafters ring with fun, and say anything and everything, no 
matter what, and won't be any properer than we 's a mind 
to be. I am wishing every day you could see our America, 
— travel, as I have been doing, from one bright, thriving, 
pretty, flowery town to another, and see so much wealth, 
ease, progress, culture, and all sorts of nice things. This 
dovecot where I now am is the sweetest little nest imagi- 
nable; fronting on a city street, with back windows open- 
ing on a sea view, with still, quiet rooms filled with books, 
pictures, and all sorts of things, such as you and Mr. 
Lewes would enjoy. Don't be afraid of the ocean, now! 
I 've crossed it six times, and assure you it is an overrated 
item. Froude is coming here — why not you ? Besides, 
we have the fountain of eternal youth here, that is, in 
Florida, where I live, and if you should come you would 
both of you take a new lease of life, and what glorious 
poems, and philosophies, and whatnot, we should have! 
My rabbi writes, in the seventh heaven, an account of 
your note to him. To think of his setting-off on his own 
account when I was away ! 

Come now, since your answer to dear Mrs. Fields is yet 
to come, let it be a glad yes, and we will clasp you to our 
heart of hearts. 

Your ever loving, H. B. S. 



342 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 

The following season she wrote with her usual sense of 
calm from Florida : — 

" I am writing as a pure recreative movement of mind, 
to divert myself from the stormy, unrestful present. . . . 
I am being chatelaine of a Florida farm. I have on my 
mind the creation of a town on the banks of the St. John. 
The three years since we came this side of the river have 
called into life and growth a thousand peach-trees, a thou- 
sand orange-trees, about five hundred lemons, and seven 
or eight hundred grapevines. A peach orchard, a vine- 
yard, a lemon grove, will carry my name to posterity. I 
am founding a place which, thirty or forty years hence, 
will be called the old Stowe place. . . . You can have 
no idea of this queer country, this sort of strange, sandy, 
half-tropical dreamland, unless you come to it. Here I 
sit with open. windows, the orange buds just opening and 
filling the air with sweetness, the hens drowsily cackling, 
the men planting in the field, and callas and wild roses 
blossoming out of doors. We keep a little fire morning 
and night. We are flooded with birds; and by the bye, 
it is St. Valentine's Day. ... I think a uniform edition 
of Dr. Holmes's works would be a good thing. Next to 
Hawthorne he is our most exquisite writer, and in many 
passages he goes far beyond him. What is the dear Doc- 
tor doing ? If you know any book good to inspire dreams 
and visions, put it into my box. My husband chews end- 
lessly a German cud. I must have English. Has the 
French book on Spiritualism come yet? If it has, put it 
in. ... I wish I could give you a plateful of our oranges. 
. . . We had seventy-five thousand of these same on our 
trees this year, and if you will start off quick, they are 
not all picked yet. Florida wants one thing, — grass. If 
it had grass, it would be paradise. But nobody knows what 
grass is till they try to do without it." 

Three months later she wrote: "I hate to leave my 



1872] CHUKCH AND SCHOOLHOUSE BURNED 343 

calm isle of Patmos, where the world is not, and I have 
such quiet long hours for writing. Emerson could insu- 
late himself here and keep his electricity. Hawthorne 
ought to have lived in an orange grove in Florida. . . . 
You have no idea how small you all look, you folks in the 
world, from this distance. All your fusses and your fum- 
ings, your red hot hurrying newspapers, your clamor of 
rival magazines, — why, we see it as we see steamboats 
fifteen miles off, a mere speck and smoke." 

Again she writes: "You ought to see us riding out in 
our mule-cart. Poor ' Fly ! ' the last of pea-time, who 
looks like an animated hair-trunk, and the wagon and har- 
ness to match ! It is too funny, but we enjoy it hugely. 
There are now in our solitude five Northern families, and 
we manage to have quite pleasant society. 

" But think of our church and school house being burned 
down just as we were ready to do something with it. I 
feel it most for the colored people, who were so anxious 
to have their school and now have no place to have it in. 
We have all been trying to raise what we can for a new 
building and intend to get one up by March. 

" If I were North now I would try giving some readings 
for this and perhaps raise something." 



CHAPTER XII 
PUBLIC readings: trial of henry ward beecher 

It was a strange contrast to Mrs. Stowe's usual life, 
and one at variance with her natural taste, when she ap- 
peared before the public as a reader of her own stories in 
the autumn and winter of 1872-73. She was no longer 
able to venture on the effort of a long story, therefore it 
was manifestly unwise for her to forego the income which 
was offered through this proposed channel. She wrote to 
her friends in Boston: *'l have had a very urgent business 
letter, saying that the lyceums of different towns were 
making up their engagements, and that if I were going 
into it I must make my engagements now. It seems to 
me that I cannot do this. The thing will depend so much 
on my health and ability to do. You know I could not 
go round in cold weather. ... I feel entirely uncertain, 
and, as the Yankees say, ' did n't know what to do nor to 
don't.' My state in regard to it may be described by the 
phrase * Kind o' love to — hate to — wish I did n't — want 
ter. ' I suppose the result will be I shall not work into 
their lecture system." 

In April she wrote from Mandarin: "I am painting a 
Magnolia grandiflora, which I will show you. ... I 
am appalled by finding myself booked to read. But I am 
getting well and strong, and trust to be equal to the emer- 
gency. But I shrink from Tremont Temple, and 

does not think I can fill it. On the whole I should like 
to begin in Boston." And in August she said: "I am to 
begin in Boston in September. ... It seems to me that 



1872] FIRST READINGS 345 

is a little too early for Boston, isn't it? Will there be 
anybody in town then? I don't know as it's my busi- 
ness, which is simply to speak my piece and take my 
money." 

Her first reading actually took place in Springfield, not 
Boston, and the next day she unexpectedly arrived at our 
cottage at Manchester-by-the-Sea. She had read the pre- 
vious evening in a large public hall, had risen at five 
o'clock that morning, and found her way to us. Her next 
readings were given in Boston, the first in the afternoon, 
at the Tremont Temple. She was conscious that her 
effort at Springfield had not been altogether successful, — 
she had not held her large audience; and she was deter- 
mined to put the whole force of her nature into this after- 
noon reading at the Tremont Temple. She called me into 
her bedroom, where she stood before the mirror, with her 
short gray hair, which usually lay in soft curls around her 
brow, brushed erect and standing stiffly. "Look here, 
my dear," she said; "now I am exactly like my father, 
Dr. Lyman Beecher, when he was going to preach," and 
she held up her forefinger warningly. It was easy to see 
that the spirit of the old preacher was revived in her 
veins, and the afternoon would show something of his 
power. An hour later, when I sat with her in the ante- 
room waiting for the moment of her appearance to arrive, 
I could feel the power surging up within her. I knew 
she was armed for a good fight. 

That reading was a great success. She was alive in 
every fibre of her being; she was to give portions of 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin " to men, women, and children who 
could hardly understand the crisis which inspired it, and 
she determined to effect the difficult task of making them 
feel as well as hear. With her presence and inspiration 
they could not fail to understand what her words had sig- 
nified to the generation that had passed through the strug- 



346 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1871 

gle of our war. When her voice was not sufficient to 
make the audience hear, men and women rose from their 
seats and crowded round her, standing gladly, that no 
word might be lost. It was the last leap of the flame 
which had burned out a great wrong. 

One of her lively and observant hearers in another city 
described Mrs. Stowe as " small in stature, with a complex- 
ion bordering on the blonde, and with the merriest twinkle 
in her eye, betokening a reservoir of fun and mirth suffi- 
cient to explode a funeral assembly with laughter. . . . 
In some parts of the scene between Eva and Topsy, she 
reached the hearts of her audience, and many a tear was 
pushed out of sight by finger tips and umbrella handles. 

"In ' part third, ' " continues this writer, " ' Laughing in 
Meeting,' a constant ripple of laughter followed her read- 
ing till she reached the point where the deacon was sent 
sprawling in the centre aisle of the church, when the entire 
audience * broke ovit ' and shook the hall with laughter and 
applause." 

These readings were conducted for her by a Lecture 
Bureau, who made her a very liberal offer if she would 
give forty readings in the New England States. She 
agreed to this plan with the understanding that the read- 
ings should be over before December in order to allow her 
to go at once to Florida. 

She wrote to her husband during this tour at a time 
when he was peculiarly depressed, from Westfield, Massa- 
chusetts : — 

"I have never had a greater trial than being forced to 
stay away from you now. I would not, but that my 
engagements have involved others in heavy expense, and 
should I fail to fulfill them, it would be doing a wrong. 

" God has given me strength as I needed it, and I never 
read more to my own satisfaction than last night. 

"Now, my dear husband, please do want, and try, to 



1872] LETTERS OF GOOD CHEER 347 

remain with us yet a while longer, and let us have a little 
quiet evening together before either of us crosses the river. 
My heart cries out for a home with you; our home to- 
gether in Florida. Oh, may we see it again! Your ever 
loving wife." 

Again she told him that she had driven to Chelsea and 
found no hotel there. "So," she continues, "I turned at 
once toward 148 Charles Street, where I tumbled in on 
the Fieldses before they had got their things off. We had 
a good laugh, and I received a hearty welcome. I was 
quickly installed in my room, where, after a nice dinner, 
I curled up for my afternoon nap. At half past seven the 
carriage came for me, and I was informed that I should 
not have a hard reading, as they had engaged singers to 
take part. So, when I got into the carriage, who should 
I find, beshawled, and beflowered, and betoggled in blue 

satin and white lace, but , now become Madame 

Thingumbob, of European celebrity. She had studied in 
Italy, come out in Milan, sung there in opera for a whole 
winter, and also in Paris and London. 

"Well, she sings very sweetly and looks very nice and 
pretty. Then we had a little rosebud of a Chelsea girl 
who sang, and a pianist. I read ' Minister's House- 
keeper ' and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly and 
appreciative. Then we all jogged home." 

"One woman in Portland the other night," she wrote 
again, "totally deaf, came to me afterwards and said: 
* Bless you. I come jist to see you. I 'd rather see you 
than the Queen.' Another introduced her little girl 
named Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another, older, named 
Eva. She said they had traveled fifty miles to hear me 
read. An incident like that appeals to one's heart, does 
it not? 

"The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by the 
horse disease; but the mayor and his wife walked over 



348 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 

from their house, a long distance off, to bring me flowers, 
and at the reading he introduced me. I had an excellent 
audience, notwithstanding that it rained tremendously, and 
everybody had to walk because there were no horses. The 
professors called on me, also Newman Smyth, now a settled 
minister here. 

"It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor, 
so I saw nothing of them. Now I am in a palace car 
riding alongside the Kennebec, and recalling the incidents 
of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory houses; and 
these pleasant little visits, and meetings with old acquaint- 
ance, would be well worth having, even though I had 
made nothing in a pecuniary sense. On the whole it is 
as easy a way of making money as I have ever tried, 
though no way of making money is perfectly easy, — there 
must be some disagreeables. The lonesomeness of being 
at a hotel in dull weather is one, and in Portland it seems 
there is nobody now to invite us to their homes. Our 
old friends there are among the past. They have gone on 
over the river. I send you a bit of poetry that pleases 
me. The love of the old for each other has its poetry. 
It is something sacred and full of riches. I long to be 
with you and to have some more of our good long talks. 

"The Lord bless and keep you. It grieves me to think 
you are dull and I not with you. By and by we will be 
together and stay together. Good-by, dear. Your ever 
loving wife, H. B. S." 

She continues in another letter to her husband : — 
"Well, my course is almost done, and if I get through 
without any sickness, cold, or accident, how wonderful it 
will seem. I have never felt the near, kind presence of 
our Heavenly Father so much as in this. ' He giveth 
strength to the faint, and to them of no might He increas- 
eth strength. ' I have found this true all my life. " 



1872J FATIGUE OF TRAVEL AND READING 349 

From Newport she writes, November 26 : — 

"It was a hard, tiring, disagreeable piece of business to 
read in New London. Had to wait three mortal hours in 
Palmer. Then a slow, weary train, that did not reach 
New London until after dark. There was then no time 
to rest, and I was so tired that it did seem as though I 
could not dress. I really trembled with fatigue. The 
hall was long and dimly lighted, and the people were not 
seated compactly, but around in patches. The light was 
dim, except for a great flaring gas jet arranged right under 
my eyes on the reading desk, and I did not see a creature 
whom I knew. I was only too glad when it was over and 
I was back again at my hotel. There I found that I must 
be up at five o'clock to catch the Newport train. 

"I started for this place in the dusk of a dreary, foggy 
morning. Traveled first on a ferry, then in cars, and then 
in a little cold steamboat. Found no one to meet me, in 
spite of all my writing, and so took a carriage and came to 
the hotel. The landlord was very polite to me, said he 
knew me by my trunk, had been to our place in Mandarin, 
etc. All I wanted was a warm room, a good bed, and 
unlimited time to sleep. Now I have had a three hours' 
nap, and here I am, sitting by myself in the great, lonely 
hotel parlor. 

"Well, dear old man, I think lots of you, and only 
want to end all this in a quiet home where we can sing 
* John Anderson, my Jo ' together. I check off place 
after place as the captive the days of his imprisonment. 
Only two more after to-night. Ever your loving wife." 

These difficult experiences of which she made so light 
were continued one more year. She wrote to her son 
Charles, then in Harvard, in October, 1873 : — 

" I read two successive evenings in Chicago, and traveled 
the following day for thirteen hours, a distance of about 
three hundred miles, to Cincinnati. We were compelled 



350 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1873 

to go in the most uncomfortable cars I ever saw, crowded 
to overflowing, a fiend of a stove at each end burning up 
all the air, and without a chance to even lay my head 
down. This is the grand route between Chicago and Cin- 
cinnati, and we were on it from eight in the morning until 
nearly ten at night. 

"Those who planned my engagements failed to take into 
account the fearful distances and wretched trains out here. 
On none of these great Western routes is there a drawing- 
room car. Mr. Saunders tried in every way to get them 
to put one on for us, but in vain. They are all reserved 
for the night trains; so that there is no choice except to 
travel by night in sleeping cars, or take such trains as I 
have described in the daytime. 

"I had a most sympathetic audience in Cincinnati; they 
all seemed delighted and begged me to come again. The 
next day George took us for a drive out to Walnut Hills, 
where we saw the seminary buildings, the house where 
your sisters were born, and the house in which we after- 
wards lived. In the afternoon we had to leave and hurry 
away to a reading in Dayton. The next evening another 
in Columbus, where we spent Sunday with an old friend. 

"By this time I am somewhat rested from the strain 
of that awful journey; but I shall never again undertake 
such another. It was one of those things that have to be 
done once, to learn not to do it again. My only reading 
between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be here in Zanes- 
ville, a town as black as Acheron, and where one might 
expect to see the river Styx. 

" I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now has 
grandchildren; but who, when I first came West, was a 
gay, rattling girl. She was one of the first converts of 
"brother George's seemingly obscure ministry in the little 



1873] FLORIDA AND REST 351 

new town of Chilli cothe. Now she has one son who is 
a judge of the supreme court, and another in business. 
Both she and they are not only Christians, but Christians 
of the primitive sort, whose religion is their all; who 
triumph and glory in tribulation, knowing that it worketh 
patience. She told me, with a bright sweet calm, of her 
husband killed in battle the first year of the war, of her 
only daughter and two grandchildren dying in the faith, 
and of her own happy waiting on God's will, with bright 
hopes of a joyful reunion. Her sons are leading members 
of the Presbyterian Church, and most active in stirring up 
others to make their profession a reality, not an empty 
name. When I thought that all this came from the con- 
version of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be doing 
so little, I said, ' Who can measure the work of a faithful 
minister ? ' It is such living witnesses that maintain 
Christianity on earth." 

At last Mrs. Stowe was again installed in the calm of 
her Florida home, where she wrote a series of Florida 
sketches, called "Palmetto Leaves." She sends a note to 
her brother Charles at Newport, Florida ; — 

"I cannot leave Florida without saying good-by. I 
send you the ' Palmetto Leaves ' and my parting love. If 
I could either have brought or left my husband, I should 
have come to see you this winter. The account of your 
roses fills me with envy. 

" We leave on the San Jacinto next Saturday, and I am 
making the most of the few charming hours yet left; for 
never did we have so delicious a spring. I never knew 
such altogether perfect weather. It is enough to make a 
saint out of the toughest old Calvinist that ever set his 
face as a flint. How do you think New England theology 
would have fared if our fathers had been landed here in- 
stead of on Plymouth Rock ? 

" The next you hear of me will be at the North, where 



352 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1874 

our address is Forest Street, Hartford. We have bought 
a pretty cottage there, near to Belle, and shall spend the 
summer there." 

Again this heart, which was never allowed to rest from 
ceaseless anxieties, was to be put to another proof. Mrs. 
Stowe wrote to her friend, Mrs. Howard : — 

"We are on our way to Cambridge for Charley's Class 
Day, and of course my heart and hands are full of his 
feelings and joys and interests. . . . But amid all these 
scenes there is a deep undercurrent of fellow-suffering 
with you all in this great trial, and my heart is constantly 
ascending in silent prayer. I prayed without ceasing for 
Henry, that his strength, health, and courage might not 
fail, and when I saw the report of the Friday night meet- 
ing I was comforted. I saw that God was manifestly 
with you, and since then my heart has been at rest. But 
I am all on fire to hear more, and cannot buy a ' Tri- 
bune. ' " 

The notorious scandal aroused against her brother, 
Henry Ward Beecher, has been very clearly outlined by 
the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D. D. It may be considered 
that Mr. Abbott has made the final report. He has 
studied the subject and sifted the evidence with the care- 
ful conscience of a man of truth, and his words may well 
be reprinted here to make the reasons for Mrs. Stowe 's 
sufferings and consolations more distinct to future readers. 

Dr. Abbott says : " It is certain no other man in America 
could have lived and retained his position and influence 
through such a scandal. . . . He had formerly been editor 
of the ' Independent, ' but had resigned in favor of Mr. 
Tilton, who for some years was extremely successful and 
popular, but at last fell under a cloud. Finding his own 
morality impeached, he adopted the peculiar defense of 
darkly insinuating that Mr. Beecher (who was now the 
successful editor of the ' Christian Union ') was open to 



1874] THE CHUKCH COUNCIL 353 

grave suspicion in the same direction. He determined 
to drive him from his pulpit, and the city, accused Mr. 
Beecher of improper advances to his wife, whispered to 
his friends that Mrs. Tilton had become the victim of a 
morbid passion, which had utterly wrecked her happiness 
and health. This last coming to Mr. Beecher' s ears, he 
believed he had not been sufficiently discreet, and with 
the instinct of a true gentleman overwhelmed himself with 
reproaches both by word and by letter. . . . Finally a 
direct charge appeared against him in the newspapers; 
whereupon he appointed a committee to look into the 
matter, consisting of some of the most eminent and re- 
spected members of his church and society. They reported 
unanimously, after giving Mr. Tilton a full hearing, that 
the charge was entirely false. . . . Tilton, however, 
brought an action at law ; the trial lasted six months, when 
Mr. Beecher was entirely acquitted. The suit was never 
tried again. 

"A council of Congregational churches and ministers was 
then called in Plymouth Church, . . . including many 
men of strong prejudices against Mr. Beecher on theologi- 
cal grounds, and some men full of suspicions engendered 
by the trial and public reports. , . . After nearly a week 
spent in a most thorough and scrutinizing inquiry, it ex- 
tended to Mr. Beecher, without a dissenting voice, the con- 
fidence of the entire council in his integrity. The whole 
affair was complicated in the public mind by Mr. Beecher' s 
unwisdom in the selection of some confidential friends at 
this trying period of his life, prior to the first publication 
of the scandal, and by his evident endeavor to keep it from 
becoming public, an endeavor not only not strange, but 
abundantly justified by the injurious effects of its publica- 
tion. 



354 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1874 

" Dreadful as was the ordeal through which Mr. Beecher 
was dragged, and fearful as his sufferings must have been 
at times, the sufferings of his people were little less than 
agony. Strong men with faltering voice and falling tears 
attested the sympathy and intense love of his people for 
their pastor, and how completely they made his trouble 
their own. His support, serenity, and cheerfulness, his 
ability to preach as he did every Sabbath during those 
dark, dark months, showing almost no appearance of wear 
or suffering, was, and still is, an unsolved wonder to those 
who did not see the position occupied by his church. Its 
members suffered more than the pastor. Their prayers 
and sympathies buoyed him up, rendering him almost 
unconscious of the malignant billows that were dashing 
against him. During those dreadful days no one ever 
intruded upon Mr. Beecher; the love and sympathy of 
his people were not kept alive by personal intercourse with 
him, and not one in a hundred of his people had a mo- 
ment's conversation with him then or since about these 
fearful troubles." 

No one can understand the life of Mrs. Stowe without 
some knowledge of this trial. If his people suffered, if 
Plymouth Church prayed, what were her sufferings and 
prayers, whose existence was so bound up in affection for 
her brother ! Her strength, continually tried to the full by 
the daily work at her desk, visibly failed. She sought 
refuge as much as possible in Florida, where, remote from 
newspapers and the battle of the world, her exhausted 
forces found space to recuperate. She wrote once : " Christ 
says, that amid the vaster ruins of man's desolation, ruins 
more dreadfully suggestive than those of sculptured frieze 
and architrave, we can yet live a bird's life of uncon- 
scious joy ; or as Martin Luther beautifully paraphrases it, 
' We can be like a bird that sits singing on his twig and 
lets God think for him. ' » 



1875] SUFFEKING WITH AND FOR HER BROTHER 355 

Her confidence in her brother was never for a moment 
shaken, but she could neither write much nor speak with 
him. Her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, at this crisis 
gave her great comfort. She wrote to Mrs. Howard : — 

" Tell me how Henry is, — how you all are. I am in- 
creasing in the hope and belief that the Lord will yet 
manifest himself and scatter this wicked host. Prayer 
and hope are our trust. Lately I have thought often of 
what the Lord said to Moses when the army of Pharaoh 
was behind, the mountains on one side, and the sea in front, 
and the rebellious people cried to God : ' Wherefore liest 
thou on thy face ? Speak unto the children of Israel, that 
they go forward.' They went forward and the sea divided 
for them, but drowned their adversaries. It is for us these 
things were done. We are heirs of them that through faith 
and patience inherit the promises." 

It was in this spirit that she endured the agony which 
had fallen upon her in behalf of her beloved brother. 
From the Twin Mountain House, where she had been with 
Mr. Beecher, she wrote: "We leave to-morrow, and you 
must not fail to be at home. There is preparing a recep- 
tion for Henry that shall show him, on his return, how his 
people feel. I am coming down, and we Plymouthites 
must all be together and have one sing. We have had 
serene and lovely times here sitting in heavenly places; 
prayers every morning with so many of the church around 
that it seemed quite natural; some also of the best and 
loveliest of our land. Not a breath of the slander reaches 
here. Sundays, there is great crowding to hear the word! 
Twenty-four or five cars! and so much tenderness and 
emotion and love ! Truly it has been good to be here ! " 

Dear Susie, — Suffer a word ! This crisis must be 
met in the closet and with the Father that seeth in secret. 
All looking here and there, rushing to and fro, listen- 



356 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1875 

ing to reports, guesses, apprehensions, only exhaust the 
strength, and take away the power of endurance. Thank 
God, He not only can help, but is not displeased to be 
importuned. If God could be wearied and made impatient 
by importunity, it were hard with us when we have trou- 
bles that will not let us rest, and keep us saying the same 
thing again and again. But He, our Lord, prayed in an 
agony three times, saying the same words. . . . God 
bless you, and help us all. 

I have been thinking much how Christ, when they 
were binding Him, asked a moment's delay that He might 
touch the ear of Malchus and heal him. 

What unruffled sweetness of nature was in this ! 
Malchus perhaps was forward and provoking, and thus 
drew on himself the attack of Peter; but Christ was, as 
He is always, not a destructive but a healing force. Across 
all this gulf of misery and scandal and sin that has swal- 
lowed so many who seemed to be Christ's, I look and pray 
for his healing power. 

I cannot but look on T 's history as most pitiable 

and no subject for scorn. . . . 

" Scorn ! would the angels laugh to see 
A bright soul driven 
Fiend-dragged adown the awful track 
To Hell from Heaven! " 

Some of his letters, written in better moments, remind- 
ing me that he had been at our prayer-meetings and our 
sacraments ... fill me with a sense of the pitiableness 
of his mind. Then, too, he is the father of those poor, 
innocent children, the husband of that poor wife. ... I 
have read a great deal in "Pilgrim's Progress" lately, and 
his case seems to me like that of the man in the iron cage. 

The man said, " 'I was once a fair and flourishing pro- 
fessor of religion both in my own eyes and those of others. 
I was once, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City and had 



1875] EXTEACTS FROM LETTERS TO MRS. HOWARD 357 

then even joy at the thought that I should get thither.' 
'Well, but what art thou now?' '1 am now a man of 
despair. I am shut up in this iron cage. I cannot get 
out ! Oh, now I cannot ! ' ' But how earnest thou in this 
condition ? ' 'I left off to watch and be sober ; I laid the 
reins on the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light 
of the word and the goodness of God. I grieved the 
Spirit and He is gone. I tempted the devil and he is 
come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and He has 
left me; I have hardened my heart so that I cannot re- 
pent. ' " 

This to all human view is his miserable state. . . . 
I have been quite unwell for two days, and no letter 
comes! . . . Meanwhile, faithful friend, cease not to 
write, for your letters are as cold water to a thirsty soul. 

Again she says: "I find since Henry's testimony that it 

is impossible for me to pray for . Do you suppose Mary 

and John joined in the 'Father, forgive them,' when they 
saw the nails driven ? No ! I pray, ' Oh, God, to whom 
vengeance belongeth, lift up Thyself ! ' . . . Pity me and 
stick to me, to the end. I am perfectly heartsick and 
homesick to be with you once more, but when I consider 
that Mr. Stowe is pastor and preacher, and that the Sun- 
day services, Sunday-school, and all, depend on us, I feel 
it would be a mere yielding to my feelings to leave our 
few poor sheep in the wilderness." 

Later in the same year she writes from Hartford: "I 
am more and more impressed with a sense of the dreadful, 
irreparable wrong and injustice this wicked husband has 
done to his wife, and which to her is deadly ; for as he 
forced her into sinful and weak compliances, he did the 
greatest injury to her possible to a human being. God 
only knows the limit of endurance, but I think she is to 
be judged of as the poor witches who, under torture, sleep- 



358 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1875 

lessness, and exhaustion, criminated themselves and others 
at the will of barbarous persecutors. . . . The way the 
slanderer of St. Francis de Sales was brought to confess 
often occurs to me, and I beg and pray that something 
like that be done in this case." 

To her sister Mary she says: "To think that Henry, 
who never would listen to an indelicate word, who has 
kept all this nauseous thing out of his mind, being obliged 
to sit in open court and have this foulness dribbled out 
before him ! It seems as if it was not permitted to him 
to avoid drinking this most nauseous cup to the dregs. If 
he can pity and forgive noiv he does it with his eyes open 
and with full consciousness of what he forgives. " 

Happily there was always Florida, bright beautiful 
soothing Florida, to help her through the deep waves of 
trouble, and there were also the letters of her friends. 

She writes: "We have had heavenly weather, and we 
needed it; for our house was a cave of spider-webs, cock- 
roaches, dirt, and all abominations, but less than a week 
has brought it into beautiful order. It now begins to put 
on that quaint, lively, pretty air that so fascinates me. 
Our weather is, as I said, heavenly, neither hot nor cold; 
cool, calm, bright, serene, and so tranquillizing. There is 
something indescribable about the best weather we have 
down here. It does not debilitate me like the soft Octo- 
ber air in Hartford." 

During the following February she writes in reply to 
an invitation to visit a Northern watering-place later in 
the season: "I shall be most happy to come, and know 
of nothing to prevent. I have, thank goodness, no serial 
story on hand for this summer, to hang like an Old Man 
of the Sea about my neck, and hope to enjoy a little season 
of being like other folks. It is a most lovely day to-day, 
most unf allen-Eden-like. " 

In a letter written later in the same season, March 28, 



1875] THE CHUECH IN FLORIDA 359 

Mrs. Stowe gives us a pleasant glimpse at their prepara- 
tions for the proper observance of Easter Sunday in the 
little Mandarin schoolhouse. She says: "It was the week 
before Easter, and we had on our minds the dressing of 
the church. There my two Gothic fireboards were to be 
turned into a pulpit for the occasion. I went to Jack- 
sonville and got a five-inch moulding for a base, and then 
had one fireboard sawed in two, so that there was an arched 
panel for each end. Then came a rummage for something 
for a top, and to make a desk of, until it suddenly occurred 
to me that our old black walnut extension table had a set 
of leaves. They were exactly the thing. The whole was 
trimmed with a beading of yellow pine, and rubbed, and 
pumice-stoned, and oiled, and I got out my tubes of paint 
and painted the nail-holes with Vandyke brown. By 
Saturday morning it was a lovely little Gothic pulpit, and 
Anthony carried it over to the schoolhouse and took away 
the old desk which I gave him for his meeting-house. 
That afternoon we drove out into the woods and gathered 
a quantity of superb Easter lilies, papaw, sparkleberry, 
great fern-leaves, and cedar. In the evening the girls 
went over to the Meads to practice Easter hymns; but I 
sat at home and made a cross, eighteen inches long, of 
cedar and white lilies. This Southern cedar is the most 
exquisite thing ; it is so feathery and delicate. 

"Sunday morning was cool and bright, a most perfect 
Easter. Our little church was full, and everybody seemed 
delighted with the decorations. Mr. Stowe preached a 
sermon to show that Christ is going to put everything 
right at last, which is comforting. So the day was one 
of real pleasure, and also, I trust, of real benefit, to the poor 
souls who learned from it that Christ is indeed risen for 
them." 

During the season of her great trouble George Eliot 
wrote to her : — 



360 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 

My dear Friend, — The other day I had a letter from 
Mrs. Fields, written to let me know something of you 
under that heavy trouble, of which such information as I 
have had has been quite untrustworthy, leaving me in 
entire incredulity in regard to it except on this point, that 
you and yours must be suffering deeply. Naturally I 
thought most of you in the matter (its public aspects being 
indeterminate), and many times before our friend's letter 
came I had said to Mr. Lewes: "What must Mrs. Stowe 
be feeling ! " I remember Mrs. Fields once told me of the 
wonderful courage and cheerfulness which belonged to you, 
enabling you to bear up under exceptional trials, and I 
imagined you helping the sufferers with tenderness and 
counsel, but yet, nevertheless, I felt that there must be 
a bruising weight on your heart. Dear, honored friend, 
you who are so ready to give warm fellowship, is it any 
comfort to you to be told that those afar off are caring for 
you in spirit, and will be happier for all good issues that 
may bring you rest ? 

I cannot, dare not, write more in my ignorance, lest I 
should be using unreasonable words. But I trust in your 
not despising this scrap of paper which tells you, perhaps 
rather for my relief than yours, that I am always in grate- 
ful, sweet remembrance of your goodness to me and your 
energetic labors for all. 

To this letter Mrs. Stowe replies after a delay of more 
than two years : — 

Orange-blossom time, 
Mandarin, March 18, 1876. 

My dear Friend, — I always think of you when the 
orange-trees are in blossom; just now they are fuller than 
ever, and so many bees are filling the branches that the air 
is full of a sort of still murmur. And now I am beginning 
to hear from you every month in "Harper's." It is as good 



1876] GOKKES AND SAINTE-BEUVE 361 

as a letter. "Daniel Deronda" has succeeded in awaking 
in my somewhat worn-out mind an interest. So many 
stories are tramping over one's mind in every modern 
magazine nowadays that one is macadamized, so to speak. 
It takes something unusual to make a sensation. This 
does excite and interest me, as I wait for each number 
with eagerness. I wish I could endow you with our long 
winter weather, — not winter, except such as you find in 
Sicily. We live here from November to June, and my 
husband sits outdoors on the veranda and reads all day. 
We emigrate in solid family: my two dear daughters, 
husband, self, and servants come together to spend the 
winter here, and so together to our Northern home in 
summer. My twin daughters relieve me from all domestic 
care; they are lively, vivacious, with a real genius for 
practical life. We have around us a little settlement of 
neighbors, who like ourselves have a winter home here, 
and live an easy, undress, picnic kind of life, far from the 
world and its cares. Mr. Stowe has been busy on eight 
volumes of Gorres on the mysticism of the Middle Ages. 
This Gorres was Professor of Philosophy at Munich, and 
he reviews the whole ground of the shadow-land between 
the natural and the supernatural, — ecstasy, trance, pro- 
phecy, miracles, spiritualism, the stigmata, etc. He was 
a devout Roman Catholic, and the so-called facts that he 
reasons on seem to me quite amazing; and yet the possi- 
bilities that lie between inert matter and man's living, all- 
powerful, immortal soul may make almost anything credible. 
The soul at times can do anything with matter. I have 
been busying myself with Sainte-Beuve's seven volumes on 
the Port Royal development, I like him (Sainte-Beuve). 
His capacity of seeing, doing justice to all kinds of natures 
and sentiments, is wonderful. I am sorry he is no longer 
our side the veil. 



362 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 

There is a redbird (cardinal grosbeak) singing in the 
orange-trees fronting my window, so sweetly and insistently 
as to almost stop my writing. I hope, dear friend, you 
are well, — better than when you wrote last. 

It was very sweet and kind of you to write what you 
did last. I suppose it is so long ago you may have for- 
gotten, but it was a word of tenderness and sympathy 
about my brother's trial; it was womanly, tender, and 
sweet, such as at heart you are. After all, my love of 
you is greater than my admiration, for I think it more and 
better to be really a woman worth loving than to have read 
Greek and German, and written books. And in this last 
book I read, I feel more with you in some little, fine 
points, — they stare at me as making an amusing exhibi- 
tion. For, my dear, I feel myself at last as one who has 
been playing and picnicking on the shores of life, and 
waked from a dream late in the afternoon to find that 
everybody almost has gone over to the beyond. And the 
rest are sorting their things and packing their trunks, and 
waiting for the boat to come and take them. 

It seems now but a little time since my brother Henry 
and I were two young people together. He was my two 
years' junior, and nearest companion out of seven brothers 
and three sisters. I taught him drawing and heard his 
Latin lessons, for you know a girl becomes mature and 
womanly long before a boy. I saw him through college, 
and helped him through the difficult love affair that gave 
him his wife; and then he and my husband had a real 
German, enthusiastic love for each other, which ended in 
making me a wife. Ah! in those days we never dreamed 
that he, or I, or any of us, were to be known in the world. 
All he seemed then was a boy full of fun, full of love, full 
of enthusiasm for protecting abused and righting wronged 
people, which made him in those early days write edito- 
rials, and wear arms and swear himself a special policeman 



1876] HER BROTHER HENRY 363 

to protect the poor negroes in Cincinnati, where we then 
lived, when there were mobs instigated by the slaveholders 
of Kentucky. 

Then he married, and lived a missionary life in the new 
West, all with a joyousness, an enthusiasm, a chivalry, 
which made life bright and vigorous to us both. Then in 
time he was called to Brooklyn, just as the crisis of the 
great anti-slavery battle came on, and the Fugitive Slave 
Law was passed. I was then in Maine, and I well remem- 
ber one snowy night his riding till midnight to see me, 
and then our talking, till near morning, what we could do 
to make headway against the horrid cruelties that were 
being practiced against the defenseless blacks. My hus- 
band was then away lecturing, and my heart was burning 
itself out in indignation and anguish. Henry told me 
then that he meant to fight that battle in New Yorkj that 
he would have a church that would stand by him to resist 
the tyrannic dictation of Southern slaveholders. I said: 
"I, too, have begun to do something; I have begun a 
story, trying to set forth the sufferings and wrongs of the 
slaves." "That's right, Hattie," he said; "finish it, and 
I will scatter it thick as the leaves of Vallombrosa, " and 
so came "Uncle Tom," and Plymouth Church became a 
stronghold where the slave always found refuge and a 
strong helper. One morning my brother found sitting on 
his doorstep poor old Paul Edmondson, weeping; his two 
daughters, of sixteen and eighteen, had passed into the 
slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill, and were to be sold. 
My brother took the man by the hand to a ptiblic meeting, 
told his story for him, and in an hour raised the two thou- 
sand dollars to redeem his children. Over and over again, 
afterwards, slaves were redeemed at Plymouth Church, 
and Henry and Plymouth Church became words of hatred 
and fear through half the Union. From that time until 
we talked together about the Fugitive Slave Law, there 



364 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 

was not a pause or stop in the battle till we had been 
through the war, and slavery had been wiped out in blood. 
Through all he has been pouring himself out, wrestling, 
burning, laboring, everywhere, making stump speeches 
when elections turned on the slave question, and ever 
maintaining that the cause of Christ was the cause of the 
slave. And when all was over, it was he and Lloyd Gar- 
rison who were sent by government once more to raise our 
national flag on Fort Sumter. You must see that a man 
does not so energize without making many enemies. Half 
of our Union has been defeated, a property of millions 
annihilated by emancipation, a proud and powerful slave 
aristocracy reduced to beggary, and there are those who 
never saw our faces that to this hour hate him and me. 
Then he has been a progressive in theology. He has been 
a student of Huxley, and Spencer, and Darwin, — enough 
to alarm the old school, — and yet remained so ardent a 
supernaturalist as equally to repel the radical destruction- 
ists in religion. He and I are Christ-worshipers, adoring 
Him as the Image of the Invisible God and all that comes 
from believing this. Then he has been a reformer, an 
advocate of universal suffrage and woman's rights, yet not 
radical enough to please that reform party who stand where 
the Socialists of France do, and are for tearing up all 
creation generally. Lastly, he has had the misfortune of 
a popularity which is perfectly phenomenal. I cannot 
give you any idea of the love, worship, idolatry, with 
which he has been overwhelmed. He has something 
magnetic about him that makes everybody crave his society, 
— that makes men follow and worship him. I remember 
being at his house one evening in the time of early flowers, 
and in that one evening came a box of flowers from Maine, 
another from New Jersey, another from Connecticut, — all 
from people with whom he had no personal acquaintance, 
who had read something of his and wanted to send him 



1876] LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT ABOUT HER BROTHER 365 

some token, I said, " One would think you were a prima 
donna. What does make people go on so about you ? " 

My brother is hopelessly generous and confiding. His 
inability to believe evil is something incredible, and so 
has come all this suffering. You said you hoped I should 
be at rest when the first investigating committee and Ply- 
mouth Church cleared my brother almost by acclamation. 
Not so. The enemy have so committed themselves that 
either they or he must die, and there has followed two 
years of the most dreadful struggle. First, a legal trial of 
six months, the expenses of which on his side were one 
hundred and eighteen thousand dollars, and in which he 
and his brave wife sat side by side in the court-room, and 
heard all that these plotters, who had been weaving their 
webs for three years, could bring. The foreman of the 
jury was offered a bribe of ten thousand dollars to decide 
against my brother. He sent the letter containing the 
proposition to the judge. But with all their plotting, 
three fourths of the jury decided against them, and their 
case was lost. It was accepted as a triumph by my bro- 
ther's friends; a large number of the most influential 
clergy of all denominations so expressed themselves in a 
public letter, and it was hoped the thing was so far over 
that it might be lived down and overgrown with better 
things. 

But the enemy, intriguing secretly with all those parties 
in the community who wish to put down a public and too 
successful man, have been struggling to bring the thing up 
again for an ecclesiastical trial. The cry has been raised 
in various religious papers that Plymouth Church was in 
complicity with crime, — that they were so captivated with 
eloquence and genius that they refused to make competent 
investigation. The six months' legal investigation was 
insufficient; a new trial was needed. Plymouth Church 
immediately called a council of ministers and laymen, in 



366 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 

number representing thirty-seven thousand Congregational 
Christians, to whom Plymouth Church surrendered her 
records, — her conduct, — all the facts of the case, and 
this great council unanimously supported the church and 
ratified her decision; recognizing the fact that, in all the 
investigations hitherto, nothing had been proved against 
my brother. They at his request, and that of Plymouth 
Church, appointed a committee of five to whom within 
sixty days any one should bring any facts that they could 
prove, or else forever after hold their peace. It is thought 
now by my brother's friends that this thing must finally 
reach a close. But you see why I have not written. 
This has drawn on my life, — my heart's blood. He is 
myself; I know you are the kind of woman to understand 
me when I say that I felt a blow at him more than at 
myself. I, who know his purity, honor, delicacy, know 
that he has been from childhood of an ideal purity, — who 
reverenced his conscience as his king, whose glory was 
redressing human wrong, who spake no slander, no, nor 
listened to it. 

Never have I known a nature of such strength, and 
such almost childlike innocence. He is of a nature so 
sweet and perfect that, though I have seen him thunder- 
ously indignant at moments, I never saw him fretful or 
irritable, — a man who continuously, in every little act of 
life, is thinking of others; a man that all the children on 
the street run after, and that every sorrowful, weak, or 
distressed person looks to as a natural helper. In all this 
long history there has been no circumstance of his relation 
to any woman that has not been worthy of himself, — 
pure, delicate, and proper; and I know all sides of it, and 
certainly should not say this if there were even a misgiv- 
ing. Thank God, there is none, and I can read my New 
• Testament and feel that by all the beatitudes my brother 
is blessed. 



1876] POWER OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 367 

His calmness, serenity, and cheerfulness through all 
this time has uplifted iis all. Where he was, there was 
no anxiety, no sorrow. My brother's power to console is 
something peculiar and wonderful. I have seen him at 
death-beds and funerals, where it would seem as if hope 
herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace of 
Heaven and change despair to trust. He has not had less 
power in his own adversity. You cannot conceive how 
he is beloved, by those even who never saw him, — old, 
paralytic, distressed, neglected people, poor seamstresses, 
black people, who have felt these arrows shot against their 
benefactor as against themselves, and most touching have 
been their letters of sympathy. 

In your portrait of Deronda, you speak of him as one 
of those rare natures in whom a private wrong bred no 
bitterness. "The sense of injury breeds, not the will to 
inflict injuries, but a hatred of all injury;" and Henry's 
friends and lawyers have sometimes been aroused and 
sometimes indignant with his habitual caring for others, 
and his habit of vindicating and extending even to his 
enemies every scrap and shred of justice that might belong 
to them. From first to last of this trial he has never for 
a day intermitted his regular work. Preaching to crowded 
houses, preaching even in his short vacations at watering- 
places, carrying on his missions which have regenerated 
two once wretched districts of the city, editing a paper, 
and in short giving himself up to work. He cautioned his 
church not to become absorbed in him and his trials, to 
prove their devotion by more faithful church work and 
a wider charity; and never have the Plymouth missions 
among the poor been so energetic and effective. He said 
recently, "The worst that can befall a man is to stop 
thinking of God and begin to think of himself; if trials 
make us self-absorbed, they hurt us." Well, dear, pardon 
me for this outpour. I loved you — I love you — and 



368 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 

therefore wanted you to know just what I felt. Now, 
dear, this is over, don't think you must reply to it or me. 
I know how much you have to do, — yes, I know all about 
an aching head and an overtaxed brain. This last work 
of yours is to be your best, I think, and I hope it will 
bring you enough to buy an orange grove in Sicily, or 
somewhere else, and so have lovely weather such as we 
have. 

Your ancient admirer, who usually goes to bed at eight 
o'clock, was convicted by me of sitting up after eleven 
over the last installment of "Daniel Deronda," and he is 
full of it. We think well of Guendoline, and that she 
isn't much more than young ladies in general so far. 

Next year, if I can possibly do it, I will send you some 
of our oranges. I perfectly long to have you enjoy them. 
Your very loving H. B. Stowe. 

P. S. I am afraid I shall write you again when I am 
reading your writings, they are so provokingly suggestive 
of things one wants to say. H. B. S. 

This friendship was one that greatly enlisted Mrs. 
Stowe' s sympathies and enriched her life. Her interest 
in any woman who was supporting herself, and especially 
in any one who found a daily taskmaster in the pen, and 
above all when, as in this case, the woman was one pos- 
sessed of great moral aspiration half paralyzed in its action 
by finding itself in an anomalous and (to the world in 
general) utterly incomprehensible position, made such a 
woman like a magnet to Mrs. Stowe. She inherited from 
her father a faith in the divine power of sympathy, which 
only waxed greater with years and experience. Wherever 
she found a fellow-mortal suffering trouble or dishonor, in 
spite of hindrance her feet were turned that way. The 
genius of George Eliot and the contrasting elements of her 



1876] BYRON 369 

life and character drew Mrs. Stowe to her side in sisterly 
solicitude. Her attitude, her sweetness, her sincerity, 
could not fail to win the heart of George Eliot. They 
became loving friends. 

It was the same inborn sense of fraternity which led 
her, when a child, on hearing of the death of Lord Byron, 
to go out into the fields and fling herself, weeping, on the 
mounded hay, where she might pray alone for his forgive- 
ness and salvation. It is wonderful to observe the influ- 
ence of Byron upon that generation. It is on record that 
when Tennyson, a boy of fifteen, heard some one say, 
"Byron is dead," he thought the whole world at an end. 
"I thought," he said one day, "everything was over and 
finished for every one; that nothing else mattered. I 
remember that I went out alone and carved * Byron is 
dead ' into the sandstone. " 

Mrs. Stowe belonged to the sympathetic order of genius; 
but it is to be observed how little of the " vatis irritabile " 
was to be found in her. She wrote to Dr. Holmes, put- 
ting aside all mention of the sorrows which had so weighed 
her down : — 

Mandarin, February 23. 

Dear Doctor, — How kind it was of you to write me 
that very beautiful note ! and how I wish you were just 
where I am, to see the trees laden at the same time with 
golden oranges and white blossoms ! I should so like to 
cut ofi" a golden cluster, leaves and all, for you. Well, 
Boston seems very far away and dreamy, like some pre- 
vious state of existence, as I sit on the veranda and gaze 
on the receding shores of the St. John's. 

Dear doctor, how time slips by ! I remember when 
Sumner seemed to me a young man, and now he has gone. 
And Wilson has gone, and Chase, whom I knew as a 
young man in society in Cincinnati, has gone, and Stanton 



370 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 

has gone, and Seward has gone, and yet how lively the 
world races on! A few air- bubbles of praise or lamenta- 
tion, and away sails the great ship of life, no matter over 
whose grave! 

Well, one cannot but feel it! To me, also, a whole 
generation of friends has gone from the other side of the 
water since I was there and broke kindly bread with them. 
The Duchess of Sutherland, the good old duke, Lansdowne, 
Ellesraere, Lady Byron, Lord and Lady Amberley, Charles 
Kingsley, the good Quaker, Joseph Sturge, all are with the 
shadowy train that has moved on. Among them were as 
dear and true friends as I ever had, and as pure and noble 
specimens of human beings as God ever made. They are 
living somewhere in intense vitality, I must believe, and 
you, dear doctor, must not doubt. 

I think about your writings a great deal, and one ele- 
ment in them always attracts me. It is their pitiful and 
sympathetic vein, the pity for poor, struggling human na- 
ture. In this I feel that you must be very near and dear 
to Him whose name is Love. 

You wrote some verses once that have got into the 
hymn-books, and have often occurred to me in my most 
sacred hours as descriptive of the feelings with which I 
bear the sorrow and carry the cares of life. They begin: 

"Love Divine, that stooped to share ; " 

I have not all your books down here, and am haunted 
by gaps in the verses that memory cannot make good; but 
it is that " Love Divine " which is my stay and comfort 
and hope, as one friend after another passes beyond sight 
and hearing. Please let me have it in your handwriting. 

I remember a remark you once made on spiritualism. 
I cannot recall the words, but you spoke of it as modifying 
the sharp angles of Calvinistic belief, as a fog does those 
of a landscape. I would like to talk with you some time 
on spiritualism, and show you a collection of very carious 



1876] UNCOMMON WORKING OF NATURAL LAWS 371 

facts that I have acquired through mediums not profes- 
sional. 

I have long since come to the conclusion that the 
marvels of spiritualism are natural, and not supernatural 
phenomena, — an uncommon working of natural laws. I 
believe that the door between those in the body and those 
out has never in any age been entirely closed, and that 
occasional perceptions within the veil are a part of the 
course of nature, and therefore not miraculous. Of course 
such a phase of human experience is very substantial 
ground for every kind of imposture and superstition, and 
I have no faith whatever in mediums who practice for 
money. In their case I think the law of Moses, that 
forbade consulting those who dealt with "familiar spirits," 
a very wise one. 

Do write some more, dear doctor. You are too well off 
in your palace down there on the new land. Your Cen- 
tennial Ballad was a charming little peep; now give us 
a full-fledged story. Mr. Stowe sends his best regards, 
and wishes you would read " Gorres. " ^ It is in f rench 
also, and he thinks the French translation better than the 
German. 

Yours ever truly, H. B. Stowe. 

Writing in the autumn to her son Charles, who was 
at that time abroad, studying at Bonn, Mrs. Stowe de- 
scribes a most tempestuous passage between New York 
and Charleston, during which she and her husband and 
daughters suffered so much that they were ready to for- 
swear the sea forever. The great waves, as they rushed 
boiling and seething past, would peer in at the little bull's- 
eye window of the stateroom, as if eager to swallow up 
ship and passengers. From Charleston, however, they 

1 Die Christliche Mystik, bv Johann Joseph Gorres, Regensburg, 
1836-42. 



372 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1877 

had a most delightful run to their journey's end. She 
writes: "We had a triumphal entrance into the St. John's, 
and a glorious sail up the river. Arriving at Mandarin, 
at four o'clock, we found all the neighbors, black as well 
as white, on the wharf to receive us. There was a great 
waving of handkerchiefs and flags, clapping of hands and 
cheering, as we drew near. The house was open and all 
ready for us, and we are delighted to be once more in our 
beautiful Florida home." 

In 1877 she writes her son: "I am again entangled in 
writing a serial, a thing I never mean to do again, but the 
story, begun for a mere Christmas brochure, grew so under 
my hands that I thought I might as well fill it out and 
make a book of it. It is the last thing of the kind I ever 
expect to do. In it I condense my recollections of a 
bygone era, that in which I was brought up, the ways and 
manners of which are now as nearly obsolete as the Old 
England of Dickens's stories is. 

"I am so hampered by the necessity of writing this 
story that I am obliged to give up company and visiting 
of all kinds and keep my strength for it. I hope I may 
be able to finish it, as I greatly desire to do so, but I 
begin to feel that I am not so strong as I used to be. 
Your mother is an old woman, Charley mine, and it is 
best she should give up writing before people are tired of 
reading her. 

" I would much rather have written another such a book 
as ' Footsteps of the Master, ' but all, even the religious 
papers, are gone mad on serials. Serials they demand and 
will have, and I thought, since this generation will listen 
to nothing but stories, why not tell them ? " 

She was speaking in this letter of "Poganuc People," 
one of the most exquisite of her books of sketches. The 
flame of her genius seemed to awaken once more as she 
wrote, and the tenderness in its pages, the power to move 



1879] NEAELY SEVENTY 373 

both laughter and tears, is of her very own and of her 
very best. It was her last long book. The habit of her 
life was to write, and she did not lose it, but she was 
nearing her seventieth year, and the responsibility of a 
serial story was never assumed by her again. 

In January she wrote from Mandarin to Dr. Holmes : — 

Dear Doctor, — I wish I could give to you and Mrs. 
Holmes the exquisite charm of this morning. My window 
is wide open; it is a lovely, fresh, sunny day, and a great 
orange-tree hung with golden balls closes the prospect from 
my window. The tree is about thirty feet high, and its 
leaves fairly glisten in the sunshine. 

I sent "Poganuc People" to you and Mrs. Holmes as 
being among the few who know those old days. It is an 
extremely quiet story for these sensational days, when 
heaven and earth seem to be racked for a thrill ; but as I 
get old I do love to think of those quiet, simple times 
when there was not a poor person in the parish, and the 
changing glories of the year were the only spectacle. We, 
that is the professor and myself, have been reading with 
much interest Motley's Memoir. That was a man to be 
proud of, a beauty, too (by your engraving). I never had 
the pleasure of a personal acquaintance. 

I feel with you that we have come into the land of 
leave-taking. Hardly a paper but records the death of 
some of Mr. Stowe's associates. But the river is not so 
black as it seems, and there are clear days when the oppo- 
site shore is plainly visible, and now and then we catch 
a strain of music, perhaps even a gesture of recognition. 
They are thinking of us, without doubt, on the other side. 
My daughters and I have been reading "Elsie Venner" 
again. Elsie is one of my especial friends, — poor, dear 
child ! — and all your theology in that book I subscribe to 
with both hands. 



374 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1880 

Does not the Bible plainly tell us of a time when there 
shall be no more pain 1 That is to be the end and crown 
of the Messiah's mission, when God shall wipe all tears 
away. My face is set that way, and yours, too, I trust 
and believe. 

Mr. Stowe sends hearty and affectionate remembrance 
both to you and Mrs. Holmes, and I am, as ever, truly 
yours, H. B. Stowe. 

There is one more letter to her son Charles and his 
wife, which must close the record of her seventy years. 

" Dear children, " she says, writing from Florida to Saco, 
Maine, where her son was busy in his parish, — " Well, 
we have stepped from December to June, and this morn- 
ing is sunny and dewy, with a fresh sea-breeze giving life 
to the air. I have just been out to cut a great bunch of 
roses and lilies, though the garden is grown into such a 
jungle that I could hardly get about in it. The cannas, 
and dwarf bananas, and roses are all tangled together so 
that I can hardly thread my way among them. I never 
in my life saw anything range and run rampant over the 
ground as cannas do. The ground is littered with fallen 
oranges, and the place looks shockingly untidy, but so 
beautiful that I am quite willing to forgive its dis- 
order. . . . 

"Your father is quite well. The sea had its usual 
exhilarating effect upon him. Before we left New York 
he was quite meek, and exhibited such signs of grace and 
submission that I had great hopes of him. He promised 
to do exactly as I told him, and stated that he had entire 
confidence in my guidance. What woman couldn't call 
such a spirit evidence of being prepared for speedy transla- 
tion ? I was almost afraid he could not be long for this 
world. But on the second day at sea his spirits rose, and 
his appetite reasserted itseK. He declared in loud tones 



1880] APPROACH OF AGE 375 

how well he felt, and quite resented my efforts to take 
care of him. I reminded him of his gracious vows and 
promises in the days of his low spirits, hut to no effect. 
The fact is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have 
now no fear of his immediate translation. He is going to 
preach for us this morning." 

Still well, but not at all strong, we must leave her here 
upon the entrance of the long valley of age. 

This woman, who seems to have touched every note 
in the gamut of human joy and suffering; she who had 
known physical weakness, overwork, poverty on one hand, 
and on the other great success, who had possessed de- 
voted friends and household happiness; she who had lived 
through the sorrows of war, had lost her two sons, who 
had watched a large company pass into the unseen land 
of those who made this world lovely to her; she who 
had seen the great of the earth fall away and despise her 
for works she felt herself called upon to perform ; who 
had seen one dearest to her cast down from the high places 
and trampled on, was now to experience a slow descent 
towards the dark gate of death. There was to be no sud- 
den release from decadence, but every step of the journey 
of life was to be painfully traversed. 

A sense of fellowship in the joys and sorrows of human- 
ity was as I have said, a characteristic of her nature ; but 
this sacred fellowship was not alone born of imagination and 
tenderness of feeling ; she was indeed in harmony with the 
children of men in that she walked with them through the 
low gates of failure and decay, yet the light of her faith so 
irradiated her whole nature that she always had the secret 
of unspeakable peace if not of joy to give to those who 
were walking the same road. 



CHAPTER XIII 



NEARING THE END 



After the many instances of Mrs. Stowe's natural 
eloquence which have been quoted in these pages, it is 
scarcely necessary to say that she was a delightful talker. 
Nevertheless, the aflfectionateness of her character, her in- 
tense interest in all human experience, qualified her for 
personal communion to a most uncommon degree. She 
loved to gather a small circle of friends around a fireside, 
when she easily took the lead in fun and story telling. 
This was her own ground, and upon it she was not to be 
outdone. "Let me put my feet upon the fender," she 
would say, "and I can talk till all is blue." 

It appeared to those who listened most frequently to 
her conversation that a large part of the charm of her tales 
was often lost in the writing down; yet with all her un- 
usual powers she was an excellent listener herself. Her 
natural modesty was such that she took keen pleasure in 
gathering fresh thought and inspiration from the conversa- 
tion of others. Nor did the universal homage she received 
from high and low leave any unworthy impression upon 
her self-esteem. She was grateful and pleased and hum- 
ble, and the only visible efi'ect produced upon her was the 
heightened pleasure she received from the opportunities 
of knowing men and women who excited her love and 
admiration. Her name was a kind of sacred talisman, 
especially in New and Old England. It was a banner 
which had led men to battle against slavery. Therefore 
it was often a cause of surprise and social embarrassment 



1881] TKAITS OF CHARACTER 377 

when the bearer of this name proved to be sometimes too 
modest, and sometimes too absent-minded, to remember 
that anything was expected of her on great occasions, or 
anything arranged for her special entertainment. I have 
already told how she was utterly taken by surprise once in 
a foreign city by being invited out to breakfast, as she 
supposed privately, and finding herself suddenly in a large 
hall, upon a raised platform crowded with local dignitaries, 
and greeted before she could get her breath by a chorus of 
children's voices singing an anthem in her honor, espe- 
cially composed for the occasion. Her love of fun was 
greatly excited by this unexpected situation, and she used 
to relate the anecdote, with details about her unprepared 
condition which were irresistibly amusing. 

The sense that a great work had been accomplished 
through her only made her, if possible, less self-conscious. 
Late in life (when her failing powers made it impossible 
for her to speak as one living in a world which she seemed 
to have left far behind) she was accosted, I was told, in 
the garden of her country retreat, in the twilight one even- 
ing, by a good old retired sea-captain who was her neigh- 
bor for the time. "When I was younger," said he re- 
spectfully, holding his hat in his hand while he spoke, 
"I read with a great deal of satisfaction and instruction 
'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' The story impressed me very 
much, and I am happy to shake hands with you, Mrs. 
Stowe, who wrote it." "I did not write it," answered 
the white-haired old lady gently, as she shook the captain's 
hand. "You didn't?" he ejaculated in amazement. 
"Why, who did, then?" "God wrote it," she replied 
simply. "I merely did his dictation." "Amen," said 
the captain reverently, as he walked thoughtfully away. 

This was the expression in age of what lay at the foun- 
dation of her life. 

Her absent-mindedness grew upon her with increasing 



i 



378 HAREIET BEECHER STOWE [1881 

years. It was only by an effort that she was able to 
restrain herself sometimes after a brief conversation from 
lapsing into a calm world known only to herself; but this 
condition approached gradually. As she explained to her 
husband in the early years of their life together, this habit 
of mind was frequently the result of fatigue even while 
she was still in the prime of life. Perhaps a dinner-table 
of invited guests were eagerly listening to her conversation, 
when at some suggestion of a new train of ideas, either 
from within or thrown out in response by another, she 
would become silent and hardly speak again. Occasionally 
at a reception she would wander away, only to be found 
strolling about in the conservatory, if there were one, or 
quietly observant in some coigne of vantage where she was 
not likely to be disturbed. 

There is an anecdote given to me by a friend which 
illustrates her shortcomings in this direction. Once when 
she was at the height of her fame and popularity she was ex- 
pected on a certain day to dine at the old President Quincy 
house in Quincy, The ladies, his daughters, received their 
guest with the great dignity and courtesy which were native 
to them, and she was shown to an upper room to arrange 
her dress after the journey. The ladies waited in the 
drawing-room below; but presently there seemed to be 
unnecessary delay in Mrs. Stowe's joining them. They 
waited more and more impatiently; they began to watch 
the clock while the minutes passed, but still there was no 
step on the stair. At last dinner was announced and still 
they waited, and the maid who was sent up to speak to 
Mrs. Stowe returned to say that she had knocked at the 
door but there was no answer. Then the hostesses became 
anxious, and hurried to her room in person to see what the 
serious reason might be. They opened the door; there 
stood Mrs. Stowe just as they had left her, her bonnet and 
shawl still on, standing before a bookcase reading a volume 



1881] PKOFESSOE STOWE ON THE TALMUD 379 

which she had taken down. " Oh," said she, returning 
suddenly to the present scene of things; "do forgive me ! 
I found this dear old copy of Sir Charles Grandison just 
like the one I used to read. I have n't seen it for years 
and years ! " 

Among the responsibilities of the later period of her life 
was that of getting Professor Stowe to consent to publish 
a book. This was no laughing matter; at first the book 
was planned merely as an article on the "Talmud " for the 
"Atlantic Monthly." Afterwards Professor Stowe en- 
larged the design. Later, in speaking of his manuscript, 
she says: "You must not scare him off by grimly declar- 
ing that you must have the whole tnanuscrijot complete 
before you set the printer to work; you must take the 
three quarters he brings you and at least make believe 
begin printing, and he will immediately go to work and 
finish up the whole; otherwise what with lectures and the 
original sin of laziness, it will all be indefinitely post- 
poned. I want to make a crisis, that he shall feel that 
now is the accepted time, and that this must be finished 
first and foremost." 

And again she says: "My poor B.ab. has been sick with 
a heavy cold this week, and if it had n't been for me you 
would n't have had this article, which I send in triumph. 
I plunged into the sea of Rabbis and copied Mr. Stowe 's 
insufferable chaldaic characters so that you might not 
have your life taken by wrathfvil printers. . . . Thus 
I have ushered into the world a document which I venture 
to say condenses more information on an obscure and curi- 
ous subject than any in the known world — Hosanna ! " 

In 1881 she wrote to her son Charles: "I send you a 
newspaper clipping showing the disposition of educated 
Christians to return to the primitive basis of the great facts 
of Christianity. ... I have so rich a blessing from my 
own keeping of Lent and Holy Week that I cannot but 



380 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1881 

rejoice when I see the minds of our pious people turning 
in this direction, for it is turning from all controversial 
issues to the one spot where Christian union becomes a 
verity. At Gethsemane, the Cross, and the Sepulchre, 
Christians feel together. They feel^ not know, they are 
one. Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, Peter, James, and 
John were all disciples together at the sepulchre. 

"I have just heard of the sudden death of my friend 
Mr. Fields, . . . and now we all ask, What has he left 
of all his life's accumulations? Houses, lands, pictures, 
literary reputation, all that gone — dreams, things of the 
past. Had he any treasure laid up in Heaven ? I think 
from my remembrance of him that he had just what Jesus 
meant by treasure laid up in Heaven. He had a habit 
of quiet benevolence; he did habitually and quietly more 
good to everybody he had to do with than common. He 

favored with all his power 's charitable work, and such 

habits as these are, I think, what Christ meant by laying 
up treasure in Heaven. A spirit sympathetic with Christ's 
spirit, prepared to appreciate and enjoy Christ's work, is 
what He Himself, in the only account He gives of the 
last award, makes the test of fitness for eternal life. I 
find many traces of childlike faith in his last pieces. . . . 
When a friend is gone to the great hereafter how glad we 
are that he did believe." 

Mrs. Stowe's last public appearance was in June, 1882, 
when her Boston publishers arranged a reception for her at 
the beautiful country-seat of Ex-Governor Claflin. Henry 
Ward Beecher accompanied his sister and responded to the 
address of welcome in his own natural and touching man- 
ner. After poems by Whittier, Holmes, and others had 
been read, Mrs. Stowe herself came to the front of the 
platform. The whole company rose and remained standing 
until she had finished. In her quiet, modest way, and yet 
so clearly as to be plainly heard by all, she said : — 



1882] BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL 381 

"I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my 
heart, — that is all. And one thing more, — that is, if 
any of you have douht, or sorrow, or pain, if you douht 
about this world, just remember what God has done; just 
remember that this great sorrow of slavery has gone, gone 
by forever. I see it every day at the South. I walk 
about there and see the lowly cabins. I see these people 
growing richer and richer. I see men very happy in their 
lowly lot; but, to be sure, you must have patience with 
them. They are not perfect, but have their faults, and 
they are serious faults in the view of white people. But 
they are very happy, that is evident, and they do know 
how to enjoy themselves, — a great deal more than you 
do. An old negro friend in our neighborhood has got a 
new, nice two-story house, and an orange grove, and a 
sugar-mill. He has got a lot of money, besides. Mr. 
Stowe met him one day, and he said, ' I have got twenty 
head of cattle, four head of "boss," forty head of hen, 
and I have got ten children, all mine, every one mine.' 
Well, now, that is a thing that a black man could not say 
once, and this man was sixty years old before he could say 
it. With all the faults of the colored people, take a man 
and put him down with nothing but his hands, and how 
many could say as much as that ? I think they have done 
well. 

"A little while ago they had at his house an evening 
festival for their church, and raised fifty dollars. Every 
one of his daughters knew how to cook. They had a good 
place for the festival. Their suppers were spread on little 
white tables with nice clean cloths on them. People paid 
fifty cents for supper. They got between fifty and sixty 
dollars, and had one of the best frolics you could imagine, 

"That is the sort of thing I see going on around me. 
Let us never doubt of the result. " 

During the year Mrs. Stowe busied herself with the labor 



i 



382 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE [1882 

of putting her letters and papers in some order. She had 
written to her son Charles at the beginning of this task : — 

My dear Chaklet, — My mind has been with you a 
great deal lately. I have been looking over and arranging 
my papers with a view to sifting out those that are not 
worth keeping, and so filing and arranging those that are 
to be kept that my heirs and assigns may with the less 
trouble know where and what they are. I cannot describe 
(to you) the peculiar feelings which this review occasions. 
Reading old letters, when so many of the writers are 
gone from earth, seems to me like going into the world of 
spirits, — letters full of the warm, eager, anxious, busy 
life, that is forever past. My own letters, too, full of 
bygone scenes in my early life and the childish days of 
my children. It is affecting to me to recall things that 
strongly moved me years ago, that filled my thoughts and 
made me anxious, when the occasion and emotion have 
wholly vanished from my mind. But I thank God there 
is one thing running through all of them from the time I 
was thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering 
sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence and care. It 
is all that remains now. The romance of my youth is 
faded; it looks to me now, from my years, so very young 
— those days when my mind only lived in emotion, and 
when my letters never were dated, because they were only 
histories of the internal, but now that I am no more and 
never can be young in this world, now that the friends of 
those days are almost all in eternity, what remains ? 

I was passionate in my attachments in those far back 
years, and as I have looked over files of old letters, they 
are all gone (except one, C. Van Eensselaer), Georgiana 
May, Delia Bacon, Clarissa Treat, Elizabeth Lyman, Sarah 
Colt, Elisabeth Phenix, Frances Strong, Elisabeth Foster. 



1882] DIAEY OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 383 

I have letters from them all, but they have been long in 
spirit land, and know more about how it is there than I 
do. It gives me a sort of dizzy feeling of the shortness 
of life and nearness of eternity when I see how many that 
I have traveled with are gone within the veil. Then there 
are all my own letters, written in the first two years of 
marriage, when Mr, Stowe was in Europe and I was look- 
ing forward to motherhood and preparing for it — my 
letters when my whole life was within the four walls of 
my nursery, my thoughts absorbed by the developing char- 
acter of children who have now lived their earthly life and 
gone to the eternal one, — my two little boys, each in 
his way good and lovely, whom Christ has taken in 
youth, and my little one, my first Charley, whom He took 
away before he knew sin or sorrow, — then my brother 
George and sister Catherine, the one a companion of my 
youth, the other the mother who assumed the care of me 
after I left home in my twelfth year — and they are gone. 
Then my blessed father, for many years so true an image 
of the Heavenly Father, — in all my afflictions he was 
afflicted, in all my perplexities he was a sure and safe 
counselor, and he too is gone upward to join the angelic 
mother whom I scarcely knew in this world, who has been 
to me only a spiritual presence through life. 

Mrs. Stowe and her husband passed some time in Bos- 
ton at this period with her married daughter. She wrote 
of the pleasure they had in reading : — 

"Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. 
He is now reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the 
life and diary of John Quincy Adams. It is a history of 
our country through all the period of slavery usurpation 
that led to the war. The industry of the man in writing 
is wonderful. Every day's doings in the House are faith- 
fully daguerreotyped, — all the mean tricks, contrivances 



384 HAEKIET BEECHER STOWE [1882 

of the slave-power, and the pusillanimity of the Northern 
members from day to day recorded. Calhoun was then 
secretary of state. Under his connivance even the United 
States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad 
for negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and in- 
sane colored people were distributed in Northern States, 
and in places where John Quincy Adams had means of 
proving there Avere no negroes. When he found that 
these falsified figures had been used with the English 
ambassador as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State, 
the old man called on Calhoun, and showed him the indus- 
triously collected proofs of the falsity of this census. He 
says : ' He writhed like a trodden rattlesnake, but said the 
census was full of mistakes ; but one part balanced another, 
— it was not worth while to correct them. ' His whole 
life was an incessant warfare with the rapidly advancing 
spirit of slavery, that was coiling like a serpent around 
everything. 

"At a time when the Southerners were like so many 
excited tigers and rattlesnakes, — when they bullied, and 
scoffed, and sneered, and threatened, this old man rose 
every day in his place, and, knowing every parliamentary 
rule and tactic of debate, found means to make himself 
heard. Then he presented a petition from negroes, which 
raised a storm of fury. The old man claimed that the 
right of petition was the right of every human being. 
They moved to expel him. By the rules of the house a 
man, before he can be expelled, may have the floor to 
make his defense. This was just what he wanted. He 
held the floor for fourteen days, and used his wonderful 
powers of memory and arrangement to give a systematic, 
scathing history of the usurpations of slavery; he would 
have spoken fourteen days more, but his enemies, finding 
the thing getting hotter and hotter, withdrew their motion, 
and the right of petition was gained. 



1882] CHARACTER OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 385 

"What is remarkable in this journal is the minute 
record of going to church every Sunday, and an analysis 
of the text and sermon. There is something about these 
so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often differing from 
the speaker, — but with gravity and humility, — he seems 
always to be so self-distrustful; to have such a sense of 
sinfulness and weakness, but such trust in God's fatherly 
mercy, as is most beautiful to see. Just the record of his 
Sunday sermons, and his remarks upon them, would be 
most instructive to a preacher. He was a regular commu- 
nicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and 
Easter, — I cannot but love the old man. He died with- 
out seeing even the dawn of liberty which God has 
brought ; but oh ! I am sure he sees it from above. He 
died in the Capitol, in the midst of his labors, and the 
last words he said were, ' This is the last of earth ; I am 
content. ' And now, I trust, he is with God. 

"All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened; 
all the cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country 
for a mess of pottage; all the Tnen that stood and bore 
infamy and scorn for the truth; all are silent in dust; the 
fight is over, but eternity will never efface from their souls 
whether they did well or ill — whether they fought bravely 
or failed like cowards. In a sense, our lives are irrepar- 
able. If we shrink, if we fail, if we choose the fleeting 
instead of the eternal, God may forgive us; but there must 
be an eternal regret ! This man lived for humanity when 
hardest bestead; for truth when truth was unpopular; for 
Christ when Christ stood chained and scourged in the per- 
son of the slave." 

Meanwhile, the comfort Mrs. Stowe drew in from the 
beauty of nature and the calm around her seemed yearly 
to nourish and renew her power of existence. Questions 
which were difficult to others were often solved to her mind 
by practical observation. It amused her to hear persons 



386 HAEEIET BEECHEE STOWE [1884 

agitating the question as to where they should look to sup- 
ply labor for the South. "Why," she remarked once, 
"there was a negro, one of those fearfully hot days in the 
spring, who was digging muck from a swamp just in front 
of our house, and carrying it in a wheelbarrow up a steep 
slope, where he dumped it down, and then went back for 
more. He kept this up when it was so hot that we thought 
either one of us would die to be five minutes in the sun. 
We carried a thermometer to the spot where he was work- 
ing, to see how great the heat was, and it rose at once to one 
hundred and thirty-five degrees. The man, however, kept 
cheerfully at his work, and when he went to his dinner 
sat with the other negroes out in the white sand without 
a bit of shade. Afterward they all lay down for a nap in 
the same sheltered locality. Toward evening, when the 
sun was svifficiently low to enable me to go out, I went to 
speak to this man. 'Martin,' said I, 'you've had a 
warm day's work. How do you stand it? Why, I 
couldn't endure such heat for five minutes.' ' Hah! hah! 
No, I s'pose you couldn't. Ladies can't, missus. ' 'But, 
Martin, aren't you very tired?' ' Bress your heart, no, 
missus. ' So Martin goes home to his supper, and after sup- 
per will be found dancing all the evening on the wharf near 
by! After this, when people talk of bringing Germans 
and Swedes to do such work, I am much entertained," 

Many were the pleasant descriptions of her home sent 
forth to tempt her friends away from the busy North. 
"Here is where we read books," she said in one of her 
letters, written in the month of March. "Up North no- 
body does, — they don't have time; so if will mail 

his book to Mandarin, I will ' read, mark, learn, and in- 
wardly digest.' We are having a carnival of flowers. I 
hope you read my ' Palmetto Leaves, ' for then you will 
see all about us. . . . Our home is like a martin-box. 
... I cannot tell you the quaint odd peace we have here 



1884] LAST WINTER IN FLORIDA 387 

in living under the oak. ' Behold she dwelleth under the 
oak at Mamre. ' All that we want is friends, to whom we 
may say that solitude is sweet. We have some neighbors, 
however, who have made pretty places near us. Mr. 
Stowe keeps up a German class of three young ladies, witli 
whom he is reading Faust for the nine hundred and ninety- 
ninth time, and in the evening I read aloud to a small 
party of the neighbors. We have made up our home as 
we went along, throwing out a chamber here and there, 
like twigs out of the old oak. . . . The orange blossoms 
have come like showers of pearl, and the yellow jessamine 
like golden fleeces, and the violets and the lilies, and aza- 
leas. This glorious, budding, blossoming spring, and we 
have days when merely to breathe and be is to be blessed. 
I love to have a day of mere existence. Life itself is a 
pleasure when the sun shines warm, and the lizards dart 
from all the shingles of the roof, and the birds sing in so 
many notes and tones the yard reverberates; and I sit and 
dream and am happy, and never want to go back North, 
nor do anything with the toiling, snarling world again. I 
do wish I could gather you both in my little nest." 

"This was the last winter passed in their well-loved 
Southern home," writes Rev. C. E. Stowe, "for the follow- 
ing season Professor Stowe 's health was in too precarious 
a state to permit him to undertake the long journey from 
Hartford. By this time one of Mrs. Stowe 's fondest 
hopes had been realized; and, largely through her efforts, 
Mandarin had been provided with a pretty little Episcopal 
church, to which was attached a comfortable rectory, and 
over which was installed a regular clergyman." 

In January, Mrs. Stowe writes : — 

"Mandarin looks very gay and airy now with its new 
villas, and our new church and rectory. Our minister is 
perfect. I wish you could know him. He wants only phy- 
sical strength. In everything else he is all one could ask. 



388 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1885 

"It is a bright, lovely morning, and four orange- pickers 
are busy gathering our fruit. Our trees on the bluflf have 
done better than any in Florida. 

"This winter I study nothing but Christ's life. First 
I read Farrar's account and went over it carefully. Now 
I am reading Geikie. It keeps my mind steady, and helps 
me to bear the languor and pain, of which I have more 
than usual this winter." 

But in the spring she wrote from Mandarin to Mrs. 
Howard : — 

"I have been very unwell the season past. I have 
suffered more pain, more weariness and weakness, than ever 
in my life before. . . . But one thing, dear, precious 
friend, I cannot do, while my husband lives, I cannot visit 
and leave him, neither can I take him. He requires 
personal attentions that only a wife ought to render. 
They are not fatiguing nor exhausting, but require that I 
should be constantly with him. I think we have never 
enjoyed each other's society more than this winter. His 
mind is still clear and bright, and he is competent as ever 
to explain a text or instruct me in the merits of a verse. 
At our home in Hartford everything is arranged with refer- 
ence to his comfort and he is perfectly comfortable, but 
my friends must come there to see me. I cannot leave 
him to go to them." 

In December of the same year she writes again from 
Forest Street, Hartford, Connecticut : — 

Dear Susie, — Instead of the annual fuss and rumpus 
of this time of the year, the packing of trunks and the 
writing for passage tickets and arranging for a sea- voyage, 
I am quietly settled down for the winter in my Hartford 
home, and devoutly blessing my dear Father in Heaven 
that I have so quiet a home to settle down into. 

It has become clear that Mr. Stowe cannot take the 



1885] DEATH OF PKOFESSOR STOWE 389 

journey. We dare not undertake it Our Southern liome 
has no such conveniences as an invalid needs. It was 
charming while Mr, Stowe was well enough to sit on the 
veranda and take long daily walks, but now it is safer and 
better that we all stay with him here. ... I can make 
him happy, and I look on this as my appointed work, and 
hope to do it faithfully. . . . H. and E. aid me hero- 
ically in everything. I have no household cares. 

Pray for me, dear sister, and believe me ever your loving 
and true friend, H. B. Stowe. 

Susie, do, do write to me. 

Again she writes to Mrs. Howard in January, still in 
Hartford : — 

"You could not do a more generous deed than to enrich 
me with one of your precious letters. I am watching the 
slow sinking of my dear husband under an incurable dis- 
ease, and only praying now that he may be spared pain. 
I do not feel strength within me to see him suffer. 

"I have many things to be thankful for: a comfortable 
home, with every convenience for the care of the sick; 
two daughters, who relieve me of every household care, 
and a trained hospital nurse, who knows how to do every- 
thing and does it with neatness, order, and efficiency. . . . 
So I live day by day. I feel myself rather weak and 
weary, not with physical labor, for of that I have none, 
but you know all about it, just how it would be. . . . 
Please ask Henry to write me a few lines that I can read 
to my dear husband; his mind is clear, and I read all my 
letters to him, and nothing would please him more than 
a few lines from Henry, whom he always loved peculiarly 
from the time he was a student onward." 

"For nearly a year now," she writes in December of 
the same year, to Mrs. Howard, "I have been a watcher 
and a waiter by my husband's sick-bed; caring for my 



390 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1887 

own health and spirits that I might always show a cheerful 
and hopeful face to him, and have something cheerful to 
say to him when he feels cast down and discouraged." 

Mrs. Stowe always insisted that no small proportion of 
her success in literature should he attributed to her hus- 
band. But her love for him made her see, not what was 
iintrue, but what was secondary in her work, as if it were 
of primary importance. He appears to have been a genuine 
scholar, one of a race rare enough at any time, nor was his 
mind confined to any narrow groove. He was first, above 
all, learned in the Scriptures, but his mind was a strange 
storehouse of an endless variety of thmgs which his vigorous 
memory never suffered him to forget. Professor Stowe 
died in August, 1886. 

A period of rest now opened before Mrs. Stowe, who, 
bending under the weight of seventy-six years of unremit- 
ting toil, seemed to be possessed by a great calm. She 
had written thirty books, beside an incredible number of 
magazine papers, journals, short stories, letters, and chari- 
table missives. There are few lives which can approach 
such a showing of industry. She continued to write a 
few, a very few, notes to her friends. She says in one of 
these : — 

"I have thought much lately of the possibility of my 
leaving you all and going home. I am come to that stage 
of my pilgrimage that is within sight of the River of 
Death, and I feel that now I must have all in readiness 
day and night for the messenger of the King. I have 
sometimes had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid 
spiritual life near to and with Christ, and multitudes of 
holy ones, and the joy of it is like no other joy, — it 
cannot be told in the language of the world. What I 
have then I know with absolute certainty, yet it is so 
unlike and above anything we conceive of in this world 
that it is difficult to put it into words. The inconceiv- 



1893] THE ENTHUSIASM OF LOVE 391 

able loveliness of Christ ! It seems that about Him there 
is a sphere where the enthusiasm of love is the calm habit 
of the soul, that without words, without the necessity 
of demonstrations of affection, heart beats to heart, soul 
answers soul, we respond to the Infinite Love, and we feel 
his answer in us, and there is no need of words. All 
seemed to be busy coming and going on ministries of good, 
and passing each gave a thrill of joy to each as Jesus, the 
directing soul, the centre of all, ' over all, in all, and 
through all, ' was working his beautiful and merciful will 
to redeem and save. I was saying as I awoke : — 

*' "Tis joy enough, mj"- all in all, 
At Thy dear feet to lie. 
Thou wilt not let me lower fall, 
And none can higher fly.' 

'- "This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange 
sweetness in my mind." 

To IVIrs. Howard she wrote: "Your note to me since 
brother Henry's exaltation was exactly word for word what 
I can send back to you. ... If you dreamed I was in 
trouble the other night, you dreamed the truth, for I have 
been suffering. ... I see that almost all your family 
have crossed over Jordan, leaving you still here. ... I 
had written thus far " [she says, and it is a very brief note, 
alas!] "when I was obliged to stop through fatigue. It 
is long since I have tried to write anything, and my strength 
gives out quickly; but I hope this imperfect scrawl will 
show you that I am still your ever affectionate 

H. B. Stowe." 

This was almost the end; occasionally she was known 
to write an exceptional note, but, as she says to Mrs. 
Howard, "My mind wanders like a running brook, and I 
do not think of my friends as I used to, unless they recall 
themselves to me by some kind action. ... I think I am 



392 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1893 

in something of the condition of a silkworm who has 
spun out all his silk, and can spin no more, unless he has 
some fresh mulberry leaves. When I reach the ' golden 
shores,' where grow the trees of life, there I may be able 
to renew the happy friendships with those who have gone 
before and may come after me to that happy land." 

Finally, she says to Mrs. Howard : — 

"My sun has set. The time of work for me is over. 
I have written all my words and thought all my thoughts, 
and now I rest me in the flickering light of the dying 
embers, in a rest so profound that the voice of an old 
friend arouses me bu.t momentarily, and I drop back again 
into repose. . . . Since the going home of my dear bro- 
ther Henry, our country has not sustained such a loss as 
this of Phillips Brooks. He was one of the truly great 
ones of this earth, — great in the noble simplicity of his 
life and character." 

As I have said, she was like her father, Dr. Lyman 
Beecher, in many things. The scorching fire of the brain 
seemed to devour its essence, and she endured, as he did 
before her, some years of existence when the motive power 
of the mind almost ceased to act. She became "like a 
little child," wandering about, pleased with flowers, fresh 
air, the sound of a piano, or a voice singing hymns, but 
the busy, inspiring spirit was asleep. 

Gradually she faded away, shrouded in this strange 
mystery, hovered over by the untiring afi"ection of her 
children, sweet and tender in her decadence, but "absent." 

The tenderness and patience of her waiting years could 
only be told perfectly by the daughters who hung over her. 
She knew her condition, but there was never a word of 
complaint, and so long as her husband lived she performed 
the office of nurse and attendant upon his lightest wishes 
as if she felt herself strong. Her near friends were some- 
times invited to dine or to have supper with her at that 



1896] HER LEGACY 393 

period, but they could see even then how prostrated she 
became after the slightest mental effort. It was upon 
occasion of such a visit that she told me, with a twinkle 
of the eye, that "Mr. Stowe was sometimes inclined to be 
a little fretful during the long period of his illness, and 
said to her one day that he believed the Lord had forgot- 
ten him." "Oh, no, He hasn't," she answered; "cheer 
up ! your turn will come soon. " 

She was always fond of music, especially of the one kind 
she had known best; and the singing of hymns never 
failed to soothe her at the last; therefore when the little 
group stood round her open grave on a lovely July day 
and sang the hymns she loved, it seemed in its simplicity 
and broken harmony a fitting farewell to the faded body 
she had already left so far behind. 

She died July 1, 1896, at the age of eighty-five years, 
and her body was buried beside those of her husband and 
the children who had preceded her, in the burial ground at 
Andover. 

A great spirit has performed its mission and has been 
released. The world moves on, unconscious; but the 
world's children have been blessed by her coming, and 
they who know and understand should praise God rever- 
ently in her going. In the words of the prophet we can 
almost hear her glad cry : — 

" My sword shall be bathed in heaven." 



INDEX 



Abbott, Dr. Lyman, his statement of 
the Henry Ward Beecher scandal, 
352 fif. 

Abolitionist, Abolitionism, see Slavery. 

Absent-mindedness, in Mrs. Stowe's 
grandfather, 2 ; in Mrs. Stowe, 2 ; a 
physical infirmity with Mrs. Stowe, 
106 ; increases with age, 378 f. 

Adams, John Quincy, his life a warfare 
with slavery, 383 ff. 

Address to the women of America, con- 
taining 5G2,448 names of Englishwo- 
men, 158 fif., 263 ; reply to, 263. 

"Addresses" presented to Mrs. Stowe 
at English public meetings, 158, 159. 

"Agnes of Sorrento," conception of, 
283 f. ; interferes with "Pearl of Orr's 
Island," 285 ; pleasure in writing, 285 ; 
published, 294. , 

Amherst College, Henry Ward Beecher 
graduates from, 88. 

" Analogy," Bishop Butler's, 49. 

Ancestry of Mrs. Stowe, 1. 

Andover Theological Seminary, calls 
Professor Stowe, 166. 

Anti-slavery, see Slavery. 

Appeal to the women of England, Mrs. 
Stowe's, 263 ff. ; repUes, 268. 

Appeal to the women of America, Mrs. 
Stowe's, 210 fif. 

"Arabian Nights," Harriet Beecher's 
solace in childhood, 23. 

Argyll, Duchess of, letters to, 269, 274. 

Argyll, Duke of, defends Northern 
States, 160. 

" Asia, Researches in," Buchanan's, read 
by Mrs. Foote, 19. 

Bailey, Dr., edits anti-slavery paper in 
Cincinnati, 94 ; the " Press " is de- 
stroyed by mob, 94 fif., 143 ; editor 
of " National Era," 133. 

Batavia, N. Y., Mrs. Stowe visits, 108. 



Beecher, Catherine, sister of Harriet 
Beecher ; the eldest chUd, 9 ; " makes 
fun for everybody," 26 ; her school in 
Hartford, 42 ; assumes care of Har- 
riet's education, 42 ; fears Harriet's 
conversion is irregular, 51 ; her influ- 
ence on Harriet's character, 52 f. ; her 
engagement and loss, 52 f. ; her brav- 
ery, 53 ; letters to Dr. Beecher, 03 ; 
to Edward Beecher concerning Har- 
riet's health, 64 ; her refutation of 
Edwards " On the Will," 64 ; charac- 
ter somewhat stern, 66 ; goes to 
Cincinnati, 73; writes "Emigrant's 
Farewell," 76 ; with Mrs. Stowe at 
Brattleboro, 112; letter from Mrs. 
Stowe, 243. 

Beecher, Charles, brother of Harriet 
Beecher, " a mischievous little fel- 
low," 26 ; plays flute, 42; letters from 
Mrs. Stowe, 303, 349, 351, removes to 
Florida, 304 ; charming character im- 
pressed on region, 305 ; minister in 
Saco, Me., 374. 

Beecher, Edward, discusses with Mrs. 
Foote, 19 ; plays flute, 42 ; strong in- 
fluence over Harriet Beecher's mind, 
54 ; letters from Harriet Beecher, 60, 
66, 68 ; preaches for his father, 103 ; 
Mrs. Stowe's visit, 130 ; reported to 
have been killed at Alton, Illinois, by 
pro-slavery mob, 144. 

Beecher, Mrs. Edward ; her suggestion 
the cause of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
130. 

Beecher, Esther, aunt of Harriet, at 
Litchfield, 37 ff. ; her fund of infor- 
mation, 37; "nineteen rat stories," 
38 ; Lord Byron, 38 ; takes Charles and 
Thomas into her home, 52 ; goes to 
Cincinnati, 73 ; care of home, 87. 

Beecher, Frederick, " an interesting lit- 
tle fellow," 26. 



396 



INDEX 



Beecber, George, brother of Harriet , at 
Groton, 62 ; " out of spirita," 62 ; 
goes to Cincinnati, 73 ; preaches for 
his father, 103 ; death, 108. 

Beecher, Mrs. George, letter to, 123. 

Beecher, Harriet, see Harriet Beecher 
Stowe. 

Beecher, Harriet Porter, second wife of 
Lyman Beecher, 25 ; first impression 
upon Harriet Beecher, 25 ; upon Henry 
Ward Beecher, 27 ; her description of 
her stepchildren, 2G ; Cincinnati, 73 
ff. ; care of home, 87 ; health declines, 
87. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, anecdote illus- 
trating power of conscience in child- 
hood, 4 ; " going to heaven to find 
ma," 12 ; goes to school with Harriet 
Beecher, 23; "speaks very thick," 

26 ; his impression of his stepmother, 

27 ; graduates from Amherst College, 
88 ; editor of paper in Cincinnati, 94 ; 
his attitude toward the South at end 
of war, 275 f. ; scandal, 352 ff. ; Dr. 
Abbott's statement, 352 ff. ; Mrs. 
Stowe's account of, to George Eliot, 
362 ff. 

Beecher, Isabella, sister of Harriet, goes 
to Cincinnati, 73. 

Beecher, James, brother of Harriet, 62 ; 
goes to Cincinnati, 73; "vrill be five 
when it snows very hard," 78. 

Beecher, John, ancestor of Mrs. Stowe, 1. 

Beecher, Dr. Lyman, like his father, 2 ; 
feeble at birth, 3 ; early home in Guil- 
ford, 3 ; bright pupil, 3 ; anecdote illus- 
trating personal identity, 3, 4 ; qual- 
ities transmitted to descendants, 3 ff. ; 
moral courage, 4 ; college, 4 ; anecdote 
of robber, 4 ; anecdote illustrating 
courage, 5 ; marries Roxana Foote, 5, 
6; "made for action," 5; power of 
imparting hope, 6 ; settles in East 
Hampton, 6 ; removal to Litchfield, 7 ; 
birth of Harriet Beecher, 7 ; death of 
his vpife, 9 ; marries Harriet Porter, 
25 ; physical daring, instance of, 34 ; 
power of exciting family enthusiasm, 
34 ff. ; regret at not having met Lord 
Byron, 39 f. ; appreciation of Milton, 
40 ; of Bonaparte, 41 ; sympathy with 
executive genius, 41 ; fond of music, 
41 ; plays violin, 41 ; resigns pastorate 



in Litchfield, 52, 55 ; accepts call to 
Hanover Street Church, Boston, 52; 
frank statement of personal affairs to 
Litchfield church, 55 f. ; "last and 
saving hope for Orthodoxy in Boston," 
55 ; besieged with inquirers, 58 ; at a 
white heat of enthusiasm, 58; his 
prayer for Boston, 59 ; his methods of 
relieving nervous strain, 59 ; method 
of preparing sermons, 59; physical 
exercise needed for balance, 69 ; goes 
to Cincinnati, 73 ff. ; "performs in 
Chatham Theatre," 73; begs money 
for Lane Seminary, 73 ; in high spirits, 
74 ; in Philadelphia, 74 ; Downington, 
75 ; Harrisburg, 70 ; house on Walnut 
HiUs, 79 ; works under high pressure, 
87; "moral oxygen," 87; reunion of 
the family, 102. 

Beecher, Mary, letter to, from Cincin- 
nati, 76 ; with Mrs. Stowe at Brattle- 
boro, 112 ; death of her husband, T. C. 
Perkins, 331. 

Beecher, Mr., grandfather of Mrs. Stowe, 
character of , 2 ; a farmer and black- 
smith, 2 ; absent-minded, 2 ; loved 
fun, 3 ; his wife, 3. 

Beecher, Roxana Foote, mother of Mrs. 
Stowe, 5 ff. ; courtship and marriage, 
5, 6 ; her character, 6, 9 ff. ; East 
Hampton, 6 ; paints on ivory, 7 ; Litch- 
field, 7 ; birth of Harriet Beecher, 7 ; 
death, 9 ; Lyman Beecher's dream of 
her, 10 ; anecdote of tulip-bulbs, 10 ; 
story of Henry Ward Beecher " going 
to heaven to find ma," 12 ; her influ- 
ence on her family and the village, 12 ; 
her artistic skill, 13 ; timidity in com- 
pany, 13 ; memory sacred to her chil- 
dren, 13 ; her wish for her sons, 15 ; 
born an Episcopalian, 304. 

Beecher, Thomas, taken into Esther 
Beecher's home, 52. 

Beecher, Rev. William, Mrs. Stowe visits, 
9G, 107 ; preaches for his father, 103. 

Beecher family, ancestry, 1 ; family 
traits, 2 ff. ; reunion in Cincinnati, 
102. 

Beecher house in New Haven, the old, 1. 

Belloc, M., to paint Mrs. Stowe's por- 
trait, 202. 

BeUoc, Mme. L. S., translates " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin" into French, 157. 



INDEX 



397 



Berea College, founded by John G. Fee, 
144. 

Biblical Literature professorship in Lane 
Seminary, 73. 

Birmingham, Mrs. Stowe in, 191 ff. 

Bimey, Mr., frees his slaves, 94; assist- 
ant editor of anti-slavery newspaper, 
94 ; the Press destroyed, 94 ff . 

Boston : Lyman Beecher meets his second 
wife, 25 ; accepts call to Hanover Street 
Church, 52, 55 ; Unitarianism pre- 
dominant, 57 ff. ; Harriet Beecher vis- 
its, 62, 291 ff., 383 f. ; firemen's fund, 
Mrs. Stowe's contribution to after the 
Great Fire, 331 ; Mrs. Stowe »eads in, 
345 f. 

Bowdoin College, Professor Stowe a 
graduate of, 119 ; invitation to profes- 
sorship, 119. 

Brace, Mr. , principal of Litchfield Acad- 
emy, 29. 

Bracelet, gold, presented by Duchess of 
Sutherland, 196. 

Brigham, Miss, Assistant in Catherine 
Beecher's school, 66 ; character, 67. 

Bright, John, his reply to Mrs. Stowe's 
Appeal to Englishwomen, 268. 

Brooks, Phillips, his death a loss to the 
country, 392. 

Brown, Clarissa, assistant in Catherine 
Beecher's school, 65. 

Browning, Mrs., reply to Mrs. Stowe's 
Appeal to Englishwomen, 268 ; Mrs. 
Stowe's grief at her loss, 271 ; corre- 
spondence with, 288, 291. 

Bruce, Lady Augusta, "a strong anti- 
slavery body," 226. 

Brunswick, Me., home of Mrs. Stowe, 
120 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe revisits, 245. 

Buck, Eliza, servant in Mrs. Stowe's fam- 
ily, 175. 

Buckingham, General, carries order re- 
lieving McClellan of command, 262. 

Bull, Isaac D., Harriet Beecher boards 
in family of, 43. 

Burnet, Judge, talks of revolution in 
Cincinnati, 95. 

Burritt, Elihu, Mrs. Stowe meets, 191. 

Butler, Bishop, Harriet Beecher studies 
his "Analogy," 49; letter in imita- 
tion of, 83. 

Byron, Lady, Mrs. Stowe meets, 202 ; vis- 
its, 235 ; Mrs. Stowe's grief at her 



loss, 271 ; Mrs. Stowe's vindication of 
her memory, 318 ff. ; Professor Phelps' 
approval of her vindication, 329 ; cor- 
respondence, 217, 223, 236, 247, 321. 
Byron, Lord : Harriet Beecher's interest 
in his poems, 38, 369 ; her father's 
wish that he might have converted 
him, 39 f . 

Calvinism, reaction against, in Massa- 
chusetts, 57. 

Carlisle, Lord, letter accompanying 
" Address to the Women of America," 
158 ; Mrs. Stowe meets, 193. 

Catechism, Episcopal, 17 ; Presbyterian, 
17. 

Catholic question. Bishop Purcell ap- 
proves Harriet Beecher's treatment 
of, 80. 

Chase, Salmon P., defends Van Zandt, 
145. 

Chatham Theatre, Dr. Beecher's address 
in, 73. 

Cholera in Cincinnati, 116 ff. 

"Christian Union," Mrs. Stowe's work 
for, 325 ff. 

" Christopher's Evenings," projected 
sketches, 300. 

Cincinnati, home of Lyman Beecher and 
his family, 73 ; social and literary 
club, 82 ; College for Teachers, 92 ; 
pro-slavery mob, 94 ; in danger of 
famine, 102 ; Mrs. Stowe reads in, 
350. 

Civil war, 258 ff. ; ended, 274. 

Claflin, Governor, Mrs. Stowe's last 
public appearance, at house of, 380 f . 

" Cleon," drama vnritten by Harriet 
Beecher, 43 ; extracts from, 44-49. 

Club, social and literary, in Cincinnati, 
the "Semi-Colon," 82. 

Coggswell, Catherine Ledyard, friend of 
Harriet Beecher, 43. 

College for Teachers, in Cincinnati, 92. 

Columbus, Ohio, Mrs. Stowe's wedding 
trip to, 91. 

Conversationalist, Mrs. Stowe a charm- 
ing, 376. 

Copp's Hill burying-ground, near Lyman 
Beecher's church, 58. 

" Corinne," sympathy with, 82. 

" Corsair," Byron's, Harriet Beecher's 
interest in, 38. 



w 



398 



INDEX 



Crowell, G. M., chaplain, announces 
wounding of Frederick Stowe, 272. 

Cudworth, Rev. Mr., chaplain of Massa- 
chusetts regiment, 260. 

"Daniel Deronda," Mrs. Stowe's inter- 
est in, 361. 

Davenport, Mr., leader of colony, 1. 

Declaration of Independence, effect of, 
on Harriet Beecher, 28. 

Degan, Miss, teacher in Hartford school, 
50, 65, 67. 

Diagoras, character in " Cleon," 44. 

Dickens, Charles, Mrs. Stowe meets, 
193. 

" Divina Commedia," Dante's, Profes- 
sor Stowe's constant companion, 93. 

" Don Quixote," Harriet Beecher finds 
a copy of, 37. 

Douglass, Frederick, letter from Mrs. 
Stowe, 133 ; Mrs. Stowe supposed to 
be hostile to, 213 ; her letter to Mr. 
Garrison, 214 f . 

Drake, Dr., family physician in Cincin- 
nati, 79. 

Drawing and painting, Harriet Beecher 
takes lessons in, 65. 

" Dred," begun, 215 ; completed, 216; 
a success, 216, 218, 221, 222 ; in 
France, 229 ; Queen Victoria's inter- 
est, 219, 222, 226 ; Harriet Marti- 
neau's opinion, 233 ; a work of genius, 
251. 

Dufferin, Lord, Mrs. Stowe meets, 225. 

Dunrobin Castle, Mrs. Stowe's visit to, 
217 ff. 

Dutton, Mary, assistant in Catherine 
Beecher's school, 66 ; a mathematical 
mind, 67 ; assistant in Cincinnati 
school, 84 ; accompanies Harriet 
Beecher to Kentucky, 84. 

East Hampton, Long Island, first pasto- 
rate of Lyman Beecher, 6 ; early his- 
tory, 7 ; whales as minister's salary, 7. 

Edinburgh, Mrs. Stowe in, 186 ff. 

Edmondson girls, Mrs. Stowe redeems 
from slavery, 138 ff. 

Edwards, President, compared with Dr. 
Johnson by Mrs. Foote, 20 ; refuted 
by Catherine Beecher, 64. 

Eliot, George, personal appearance, 
points in common with Mrs. Stowe, 



206 ; her reverence and love for Mrs. 
Stowe, 334 ; Mrs. Stowe's regard for, 
334, 368 f.; correspondence, 334, 335, 
338, 339, 360. 

Elliot, Sarah, in Cincinnati, 83. 

Ehnes, Mr., in Philadelphia, 74. 

Emancipation Proclamation, 262. 

" Emigrant's Farewell, " Catherine 
Beecher writes, 78. 

England, Mrs. Stowe's visits to, first, 
178 ff. ; second, 216 ff. ; third, 252. 

Episcopal Church : the Footes stanch 
Church people, 16 £E. ; Harriet Beech- 
er's early training at Nutplains, 16 ff. ; 
activity in Florida, 302 ; Mrs. Stowe a 
communicant, 304. 

"Evangelist," Mrs. Stowe's offer from, 
104. 

" Evelina," Miss Burney's, read at Nut- 
plains, 5. 

Fee, John G., liberates slaves and is dis- 
inherited, 144 ; founds Berea College, 
144. 

Fields, J. T., Mrs. Stowe's correspon- 
dence with, 283, 295; visits, 29 ff., 
347 ; his death, 380. 

First church in Hartford, Harriet 
Beecher proposes to join, 52. 

Fisher, Ann, assistant in Catherine 
Beecher's school, 66. 

Fisher, Professor, engaged to Catherine 
Beecher, 53 ; lost at sea, 54 . 

Florence, Mrs. Stowe in, 252 ff . 

Florida, Mrs. Stowe buys plantation in, 
278 ; plans for winter home, 302 f. ; 
hires Laurel Grove, 303 ; buys place 
in Mandarin, 305 ; her first winter in, 
314 ff. ; her residence, 318 ff . 

FoUen, Mrs., Mrs. Stowe's autobiogra- 
phy, 172. 

Foote, Elisabeth, in Cincinnati, 83. 

Foote, George, uncle of Mrs. Stowe, 15 ; 
a lover of poetry, 22. 

Foote, Harriet, aunt of Harriet Beecher, 
15 ; Harriet visits her aunt at Nut- 
plains, 15 ff. ; a strict Churchwoman, 
16, 18, 20 ; catechises the children, 17 ; 
treasures family relics, 21. 

Foote, Mrs., grandmother of Harriet 
Beecher, at Nutplaius, 15 ; Harriet's 
first impressions of her, 15 ff. ; in awe 
of Aunt Harriet, 18 ; indulgent to 



INDEX 



399 



Harriet, 19 ; her books, 19 ; compari- 
son of Br. Johnson and President Ed- 
wards, 20 ; a peacemaker, 20 ; a Tory, 
21 ; letter from Harriet Beecher, 65. 

Foote, Boxana, see Beecher, Roxana 
Foote. 

Foote, Samuel, uncle of Harriet Beecher, 
interested in " Semi-Colon," 82 ff. 

France, Jlrs. Stowe in, 202. 

" Frank," Miss Edgeworth's, read to 
Harriet Bee cher in childhood, 11. 

Franklin, Mass., Harriet Beecher spends 
vacation at, 62. 

French language, Harriet Beecher stud- 
ies, 50, 65, 227. 

" French Revolution, state of the clergy 
during," delight of Harriet Beecher 's 
childhood, 36. 

Fugitive Slave Act, 130, 145. 

Fun, love of, characteristic of Beecher 
family, 3 ; Catherine, 42 ; Harriet, 377. 

Gamage, Mrs., at Catherine Beecher's 

school, 67. 
Gardiner, John Lyon, friend of Lyman 

Beecher, 7. 
Gardiner's Island, home of John Lyon 

Gardiner, 7. 
Garrison, William Lloyd ; his radicalism 

disturbs Mrs. Stowe, 212 ; her letter 

concerning Frederick Douglass, 214 f.; 

letter to Mrs. Stowe, 275 f. 
Gaskell, Mrs., Mrs. Stowe visits, 235. 
Genius, possessed by Harriet and Henry 

Ward Beecher, 9 ; Lyman Beecher's 

sympathy with, 41. 
Geography, Harriet Beecher's, 80. 
Glasgow, Mrs. Stowe in, 181 ff. 
Gtirres, Professor Stowe's interest in, 

361. 
Grandison, Sir Charles, Lyman Beecher 

like, 5. 
Groton, Mass., Harriet Beecher's brother 

George at, 62 ; Harriet thinks of tak- 
ing charge of school at, 62. 
Guiccioli memoirs, 320, 322. 
Guilford, Lyman Beecher's early home, 

3, 5 ; home of Roxana Foote, 5. 
Gymnastic apparatus, Lyman Beecher's, 

59. 

Hanover Street Chiirch, Boston, Lyman 
i. Beecher called to, 65. 



Hartford, Catherine Beecher's school 
in, 42, 52; First Church in, 52; Mrs. 
Stowe visits, 103 ; Mrs. Stowe's home at 
Oakwold, 293 If. ; her home on Forest 
Street, 352. 

Harvard College, Unitarian, 57. 

Hawks, Miss, assistant in Catherine 
Beecher's school, 65 ; gives Harriet 
Beecher habit of sociabihty, 81. 

Hawthorne, Mrs. Nathaniel, "a second 
Scheherezade," 282. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on shipboard 
with Mrs. Stowe, 282. 

Heber, Bishop, Lite of, read by Mrs. 
Foote, 19. 

Helps, Arthur, Mrs. Stowe meets, 193. 

Hollis professorship, employed to edu- 
cate Unitarians, 57. 

Holmes, Dr. O. W., letters to, 288, 289, 
319, 369, 373. 

"House and Home Papers," 295; suc- 
cess of, 300. 

Howard, Mr. and Mrs. John T., mem- 
bers of Plymouth Church, 162 ; how 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written, 
Mrs. Stowe's account, 103 ff. ; gener- 
ous intermediary between Henry Ward 
Beecher and Mrs. Stowe, 166 ; letters 
from Mrs. Stowe, 219, 280, 284, 322, 
328, 355, 388, 389, 391, 392; in Europe 
with Mrs. Stowe, 252 ; death of daugh- 
ter, 279. 

Howard, Mr., editor and publisher, let- 
ters to, 325. 

" Immortality of the Soul," etc., early 

composition by Harriet Beecher, 30. 
"Independent," Mrs. Stowe writes for, 

285 ff. 
Inkstand, presented by ladies of Surrey 

Chapel, 201. 
"Isaiah," Lowth's, read by Mrs. Foote, 

19. 
Italian language, Harriet Beecher 

studies, 50. 
Italy, Mrs. Stowe visits, 230 f., 252 ff. 

Jolmson, President, " honestly seeking 
to do right," 275. 

Johnson, Samuel, Works of, read by Mrs. 
Foote, 19 ; compared with President 
Edwards by Mrs. Foote, 20; hypo- 
chondria, C3. 



400 



INDEX 



Kentucky, Harriet Beecher's visit to, 
84; Cincinnati mob led by Kentucky 
slaveholders, 143. 

"Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," begim, 
171, 177 ; sold extensively at South, 
209 ; opinion of " North American Re- 
view," 209. 

Kilbourne, Ma'am, Harriet Beecher's 
first teacher, 23. 

Kindergarten system, Mrs. Stowe disap- 
proves of, C3. 

Kingsley, Charles, Mrs. Stowe visits, 
227. 

Kossuth, Mrs. Stowe calls on, 198. 

Labouchere, Mr. and Lady Mary, visit 

to, 224 ff. 
Lane Theological Seminary, Lyman 
Beecher called to presidency of, 73 ; 
Professor Stowe to select foreign 
books, 92 ; typhoid fever, 108 ; desti- 
tute young men, 108 ; Professor Stowe 
raises money, 109 ; Professor Stowe 
leaves, 118 ; students largely aboli- 
tionists, 143. 
Latin language, Harriet Beecher studies, 

43. 
Laurel Grove, Mrs. Stowe's first home 

in Florida, 303. 
Lentulus, character in " Cleon," 44. 
Letters : 

Catherine Beecher to Harriet Beecher, 

30. 
Mrs. Edward Beecher to Mrs. Stowe, 

130. 
Lyman Beecher to Litchfield congre- 
gation, 55. 
Lady Byron to Mrs. Stowe, 217, 223. 
George Eliot to Mrs. Stowe, 334, 3G0. 
Harriet Martineau to Mrs. Stowe, 232. 
Prof. Stowe to his mother, 103. 
Prof. Stowe to Mrs. Stowe, 103, 105. 
Mrs. Stowe to her daughters, 235, 241, 

244, 245, 331. See also mfra. 
Mrs. Stowe to her son, 42. See also 

infra. 
Mrs. Stowe to the Duchess of Argyll, 

2G9, 274. 
Mrs. Stowe to Catherine Beecher, 243. 
Mrs. Stowe to Charles Beecher, 309, 

349, 351. 
Mrs. Stowe to Edward Beecher, GO, 
61, 66, 68. 



Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. George Beecher, 

123. 
Mrs. Stowe to Dr. Lyman Beecher, 

63. 
Mrs. Stowe to Mary Beecher, 76. 
Mrs. Stowe to Lady Byron, 223, 236, 

247. 
Mrs. Stowe to Frederick Douglass, 133. 
Mrs. Stowe to George Eliot, 335, 338, 

339, 360. 
Mrs. Stowe to J. T. Fields, 273, 283, 

295. 
Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Follen, 172. 
Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Foote, 52, 64. 
Mrs. Stowe to Wm. Lloyd Garrison, 

214 f. 
Mrs. Stowe to Dr. Holmes, 288, 289, 

319, 3G9, 373. 
Mrs. Stowe to Mr. Howard, 325 f . 
Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Howard, 219, 280, 

282, 284, 322, 328, 355, 388, 389, 391, 

392. 
Mrs. Stowe to Georgiana May, C2, 70, 

80, 81, 82, 85, 91, 90, 102, 107, 115, 

122. 
Mrs. Stowe to Charles Stowe, 371, 372, 

374, 379, 382. 
Mrs. Stowe to Professor Stowe, 93, 

104, 110, 112, 114, 116, 119, 121, 122, 

138, 1G7 ff., 216, 218, 221, 253, 257, 

259, 347. 
Mrs. Stowe to Duchess of Sutherland, 

171, 238. 
Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Wigham, 212. 
" Liberator, The," Mrs. Stowe fears its 

radicalism, 212 ; its work done, 275. 
"Lightfoot Opera," Harriet Beecher's 

wonder at, 28. 
Lincoln, President, Mrs. Stowe's inter- 
view with, 262, 269. 
Lind, Jeimy, subscription to Edmond- 
son ransom, 138 ; sends concert tickets 
to Mrs. Stowe, 140. 
Litchfield, Conn., Lyman Beecher settles 
in, 7 ; Harriet Beecher's birthplace, 7 ; 
description of, 8 ; meeting-house, 8 ; 
beautiful scenery, SO fif. ; fishing trips, 
32 f. ; nuttmg excursion, 34 ; Dr. 
Beecher resigns pastorate, 52, 55. 
Litchfield Academy, Harriet Beecher at- 
tends, 29. 
Literature, Mrs. Stowe not a student of, 
299. 



INDEX 



401 



Liverpool, Mrs. Stowe in, 179. 

London, Mrs. Stowe in, 192. 

Lovejoy, sliot in Alton, Illinois, by pro- 
slavery mob, 144. 

Lucullus, character in " Cleon," 44. 

Lyman, Miss, becomes wife of Mr. 
Beecher, 3. See Beecher, Mr., grand- 
father of Mrs. Stowe. 

" Magrnalia," Cotton Mather's, Harriet 
Beecher's delight in, 28. 

Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe buys estate in, 
303, 305 ; makes it her home, 324 ; mis- 
sion church, 329 ; church and school- 
house burned, 343 ; Easter Sunday, 
359 ; charm of Mrs. Stowe's home, 
386 f. ; Episcopal church founded, 387. 

Martineau, Harriet, letter from, 232. 

Massachusetts, reaction against strict 
theocracy, 56 ; Orthodoxy despised, 
57 ; Unitarianism predominant, 57 f. 

May, Georgiana, friend of Harriet 
Beecher, 43 ; letters to, 62, 70, 80, SI, 
82, 85, 91, 96, 102, 107, 115, 122 ; habits 
of mind different from Harriet's, 64 ; 
visits Mrs. Foote with Harriet, 64 ; 
Mrs. Stowe's third daughter named 
from, 108. 

"Mayflower, The," Mrs. Stowe's first 
book, 8 ; revised and enlarged, 204. 

Meeting-house at Litchfield, Conn., Mrs. 
Stowe's recollection of, 8. 

" Men of our Times," Mrs. Stowe's book, 
205. 

Milton, John, Lyman Beecher's appre- 
ciation of, 40. 

Mina, Mrs. Stowe's servant, figures in 
domestic and literary difficulties, 96, 
98 ff. 

"Minister's Wooing, The," due to Cath- 
erine Beecher's romantic experience, 
54 ; publication, 248 ; Lowell's opin- 
ion, 249 f. 

"Miscellany, Boston," Mrs. Stowe's 
oiler from, 104. 

Mob, in Cincinnati, 94 S. 

Model schools, in the West, 85. 

Modesty, a trait of Mrs. Stowe's charac- 
ter, 374. 

Mohl, Madame, Mrs. Stowe visits, 229. 

"Moral oxygen," 87. 

" Mourning Veil, The," published, 248. 

Music, Lyman Beecher fond of, 41. 



"My Wife and I," Mrs. Stowe's novel, 
328 ; success, 332. 

" National Era," anti-slavery paper, Mrs. 
Stowe writes " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 
for, 133. 

Negroes, endurance of, anecdote illustra- 
ting, 386. 

Nero, character in " Cleon," 47. 

New Haven, Mrs. Stowe's ancestors 
settle in, 1. 

New Orleans, Mrs. Stowe warmly wel- 
comed in, 337. 

New York City, stop in, on the way to 
Cincinnati, 73. 

Newport, Florida, home of Charles 
Beecher, 304. 

Niagara, Harriet Beecher's impression 
of, 89. 

Novel-reading, regarded as an evil in 
Mrs. Stowe's childhood, 36. 

Nutplains, home of the Footes, 5 ; Har- 
riet Beecher's first visit, 15 £E. ; visit 
at eleven, 30. 

Oakwold, Mrs. Stowe's home in Hart- 
ford, 293 fif. 

Ohio River, navigation closed, 102. 

"Oldtown Fireside Stories" finished, 
332. 

" Oldtown Folks," Mrs. Stowe's inter- 
est in, 312 ; hindered by household 
cares, 313, by rest in Florida, 316 ; 
published, 323 ; George Eliot's ap- 
proval, 334. 

Oljinpia, map of, drawn by Harriet 
Beecher, 44. 

Orthodoxy in Boston, Dr. Beecher 
needed to save, 55 ; despised, 57. 

" Our Martyrs," story of boy dying in 
Southern prison, 297. 

Ovid, Harriet Beecher translates, 43. 

Palmerston, Lord, Mrs. Stowe meets, 
195. 

" Palmetto Leaves," Mrs. Stowe's Flor- 
ida sketches, 351. 

Paris, Mrs. Stowe in, 202, 228, 232. 

" Pearl of Orr's Island," begun, 168 ; 
laid aside, 170 ; recommenced, 285 ; 
suspended for six months, 286 ; card 
in " Independent," 287. 

Penny offering, national, 188. 



402 



INDEX 



Perkins, Thomas C, death of, 331. 

Philadelphia, stop in, on the way to Cin- 
cinnati, 74. 

Physical exercise, Dr. Beecher's, 59 ; 
not thought necessary for women, 69 ; 
Mrs. Stowe's, at Brattleboro, 113. 

Pierpont, John, the poet, friend of Ly- 
man Beecher, 8. 

Planchette, projected story, 316 f. 

"Planter, Alabama," makes solemnly 
savage attack on Mrs. Stowe, 168. 

Plymouth Church, in " Beecher trial," 
365 fE. 

"Poganuc People," Mrs. Stowe's last 
long book, 373. 

PoUock, Lord Chief Baron ; his opinion 
of the legal points in the " Key," 192. 

Porter, Harriet, see Beecher, Harriet 
Porter. 

Portraits of Mrs. Stowe, 205 ff. ; by 
Richmond, 205 ; bust, by Miss Du- 
rant, 207 ; the Foote mask, 207 ; her 
face dull and heavy when not ani- 
mated by feeling, 206 ; photographs 
often painfully plain, 206. 

Poverty, suffering from, 109, 132, 325. 

Prussia, Professor Stowe to study 
schools of, 92. 

Purcell, Bishop, approves Harriet 
Beecher's treatment of Catholic ques- 
tion, 80. 

Putnam, Oliio, home of William Beech- 
er, 90 ; Mrs. Stowe visits, 96. 

Reader, public, Mrs. Stowe as a, 344 ff. ; 
in Springfield, 345 ; Boston, 345 ; Chel- 
sea, 347 ; Portland, 347 ; Bangor, 347 ; 
Newport, 349 ; Chicago, 349 ; Cincin- 
nati, 349 ; Columbus, 350 ; Dayton, 
350 ; Zanesville, 350. 

Rees's Cyclopedia, in Harriet Beecher's 
childhood, 22. 

Reeve, Judge, friend of Lyman Beecher, 
8. 

Religious experience, Harriet Beech- 
er's ; verse associated with mother's 
memory, 13 ; father's prayer, 14 ; 
mother's influence, 15 ; grandmother's 
reading prayers, 16 ; catechisms, 17 ; 
reading to grandmother, 19 ; commit- 
ting to memory, 23 ; her father's ser- 
mon on Byron, 39 ; Baxter's " Saint's 
Rest," 49 ; believes herself to be a 



Christian, 50 ; her father's sympathy, 
51 ; reception by pastor of First 
Church, 52 ; morbid feeling, 53, 61, 
63 ; happier if her mother had lived, 
65 ; perfection of God, 66 ; desire to 
be loved, 67 ; God merciful, 68 ; 
" everything to offer in extenuation 
for our sins," 68; returns to early 
trust, 69 ; better off than most chil- 
dren of our day, 70 ; gives up habit of 
meditation, 70 ; pleasure in acquaint- 
anceship, 71 ; " love is the life-blood of 
mind," 72 ; " tranquil, quiet, and 
happy," 92 ; " Earthly Care a Hea- 
venly Discipline," 121 ; " Still, still 
with Thee," 170 ; fears as to radical 
influence in anti-slavery work, 213 ; 
she feels heavenly friends nearer, 236 ; 
effect of her son Henry's death, 238 ff. ; 
human beings were to her " spirits 
walking the brief road to the eternal 
life," 252 ; civil war God's punish- 
ment for slavery, 258 ; submission, 
280 f. ; spiritualism not attractive, 
in comparison with faith in Christ, 
309 ff. ; her ambition for " The Chris- 
tian Union," 328 ; her idea of heaven, 
332 ; her faith during the Henry Ward 
Beecher trial, 354 ff. ; " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin " written under inspira- 
tion, 163, 377 ; test of fitness for eter- 
nal life, 380 ; unwavering sense of 
Christ's presence, 382, 390; "in sight 
of the River of Death," 390. 

Rhodes', J. F., " History of the United 
States," critical review of "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," 140 ; Mrs. Stowe and 
Frederick Douglass, 213. 

Rochester, railroad accident delays Mrs. 
Stowe, 107. 

Roenne, Baron de, Prussian ambassador, 
his complimentary visit to Professor 
Stowe, 103. 

Rome, Mrs. Stowe in, 230, 231, 255. 

Ruskin, John, Mrs. Stowe visits, 235 ; 
correspondence with, 288, 291. 

" Saint's Rest," Baxter's, affects Har- 
riet Beecher, 49. 

Sand, George, reviews " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," 151 ff. ; personal appearance, 
points in common with Mrs. Stowe, 
206. 



INDEX 



403 



Schools : Ma'am Kilboume's, 23 ; Litch- 
field Academy, 29 ; Catherine Beech- 
er's, at Hartford, 52, 60, 65 ; in Cin- 
cinnati, 73, 80, 85 ; Miss Pierce's, 50 ; 
model schools in the West, 85 ; Col- 
lege for Teachers, 92 ; common schools 
of Europe, 92 S. 

Scotland, Mrs. Stowe's visits to, 180 ff. ; 
216 £E. 

Scott, Walter, ballads of, read to Har- 
riet Beecher in early childhood, 22 ; 
novels, read in Lyman Beecher's 
family, 36 ff. ; Mrs. Stovee reads at 
Brunswick, 128 ; her visit to Abbots- 

• ford, 190. 

Semi-Colon, in Cincinnati, a club, 82 ff. 

Shaftesbury, Lord, originator of " Ad- 
dress to the Women of America," 158. 

" Shelby, Colonel," Harriet Beecher's 
visit to plantation, 84. 

Sherman, Roger, a friend of Mrs. Stowe's 
grandfather, 2. 

Skinner, Dr., in Philadelphia, 74. 

Slavery, first brought to Harriet Beech- 
er's personal notice, 84 ; in Mrs. 
Stowe's journal, 94 ; Mrs. Stowe not 
yet an abolitionist, 94 ; Mr. Bimey and 
Dr. Bailey edit the " Press," 94 ; the 
" Press " destroyed, 94 ff. ; pro- 
slavery mob in Cincinnati, 94; "alli- 
ance between old school and slave- 
holders wUl make abolitionists," 96 ; 
Webster's seventh of March speech, 
130 ; Fugitive Slave Act, 130 ; " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," 130 ff. ; the church 
pro-slavery, 134 ; " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," 140 ff. ; history of pro-slavery 
excesses leading to " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," 141 ff. ; Key to " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," 171 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe's work in 
England, 204, 208 ff. ; anti-slavery 
fashionable, 208 ; church pushed to 
its duty by the world, 209 ; colored 
convention, 209 ; appeal to American 
women, 210 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe and Fred- 
erick Douglass, 214 f.; " Dred," 215 ff.; 
civil war, 258 ff.; Emancipation Procla- 
mation, 262 ; appeal to Englishwomen, 
263 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe's letter to the 
Duchess of Argyll, 271 ; end of the 
war, 274 ; attitude of various public 
men, 275 ; progress of the colored peo- 
ple, 381. 



" Society woman," Mrs. Stowe not a, 
256. 

" Solomon's Song, Harmer on," Harriet 
Beecher's pleasure in learning, 36. 

" Souvenir, The," magazine, 105. 

Spiritualism : Lyman Beecher's dream, 
10 ; letter to Professor Stowe, 253 ; 
Mrs. Stowe's attitude toward, 306 ff. ; 
absurd to deny the facts, 336 ; inter- 
esting study in psychology, 336 ; curi- 
ous studies into nature, 337 ; Mrs. 
Stowe's letter to Dr. Holmes, 370. 

Stael, Madame de, sympathy with, 82. 

Stafford House, meetings at, 158, 195 ff. ; 
Mrs. Stowe visits, 193 ff. ; tea, 200. 

Stoke Park, visit to, 224. 

" Stone Cabin, The," Mrs. Stowe'shome 
in Andover, 167. 

Stowe, Calvin E., professor in Lane 
Seminary, 73 ; member of social and 
literary club, 90 ; partisan of radical 
Professor Tyler, 90 ; quick insight and 
exceptional learning, 90 ; keen sufferer 
from depression, 90 ; Harriet Beech- 
er's sympathy, 91 ; marries Harriet 
Beecher, 91 ; goes to Europe, 92 ff. ; 
agent of the State of Ohio, and of 
Lane Seminary, 92 ff. ; remarkable 
knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, Ger- 
man, and Italian, 93 ; tries water-cure, 
115 ; professor in Bowdoin College, 
119 ff. ; Brunswick, 128 ff. ; professor 
in Andover Seminary, 166 ; England, 
178 ff., 252; death of son Henry, 
238 ff. ; Hartford, 293 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe's 
dependence on, 299 ; Florida, 318 ff. ; 
preaches in Mandarin, 329, 359 ; arti- 
cle on the Talmud, 379 ; Boston, 383 ; 
last illneas, 389 ; death, 390 ; corre- 
spondence with Mrs. Stowe, see Let- 
ters. 

Stowe, Charles, son of Mrs. Stowe, stu- 
dent at Bonn, 371 ; Mrs. Stowe's cor- 
respondence with, 371, 372, 374, 379, 
382. 

Stowe, EUza Tyler, first wife of Calvin 
E. Stowe, 90 ; intimate friend of Har- 
riet Beecher, 90 ; member of social 
club, 90 ; death, 90. 

Stowe, Eliza Tyler, daughter of Mrs. 
Stowe, 90. 

Stowe, Frederick William, son of Mrs. 
Stowe, 101 ; member of First Massa- 



404 



INDEX 



chusetts Regiment, 259 ; in Jersey 
City, 259 f . ; lieutenant's commission, 
261 ; his mother's visit iu Wasliington, 
261 f . ; captain, 272 ; wounded at Get- 
tysburg, 272 ; never entirely to re- 
cover, 278 ; plantation iu Florida, 278, 
302 lif. ; sea^voyage, 333 ; not heard 
from after reaching San Francisco, 
333. 

Stowe, Georgiana May, third daughter 
of Mrs. Stowe, 108 ; in England, 252 ; 
marriage, 297 ; visit from Mrs. Stowe, 
383. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher : Ancestry, 1 fif. ; 
birth, 7 ; mother's death, 9 ff. ; visit 
at Nutplains, 15 if. ; first school, 23 ; 
literary longings, 23 ; her stepmother, 
25 ff. ; her father's study, 27 ff. ; at- 
tends Litchfield Academy, 29 ; preco- 
cious composition, 30 ; recollections of 
Litchfield home, 31 ff. ; Scott, 3G ; 
Byron, 38 ; Bonaparte, 41 ; music, 42 ; 
at school in Hartford, 42 ; her drama, 
" Cleon," 43 ff. ; Butler's " Analogy," 
49 ; Baxter's " Samt's Rest," 49 ; be- 
comes a Christian, 50 ff., 60 ff. ; first 
visit to Boston, 02 ff. ; hypochondria, 
63 ; visits her grandmother, 04 ; les- 
sons in painting, 65 ; larger religious 
experience, 66 ff. ; a change iu her 
character, 69 ff. ; on the way to Cin- 
cinnati, 73 ff. ; in Cincinnati, 76 ff. ; 
Bishop Purcell approves her treatment 
of the Catholic question, 80 ; new 
school, 80 ff. ; first published story, 
82 ; literary club, 82 ff. ; visits Ken- 
tucky, 84 ; model schools, 85 ff. ; her 
home in Cincinnati, 85 ff. ; first visit 
East, 88 ff. ; Niagara, 89; death of 
Eliza Stowe, 90 ; marries Professor 
Stowe, 91 ; second visit East, 92 ff. 
Professor Stowe goes abroad, 92 ff. 
experience with Cincinnati mob, 94 ff. 
birth of twin daughters, 96 ; birth of 
son, Henry, 96 ; amusing combination 
of literary work and home cares, 96 ff. ; 
third visit East, 103 ; her husband 
advises her to live a literary life, 103, 
105 ; her response, 104 ; absence of 
mind a physical infirmity with her, 
106; first journey by rail, 107; ty- 
phoid fever iu the seminary, 108; 
birth of third daughter, 108 ; death of 



Rev. George Beecher, 108 ; poverty, 
109 ; debUity, 109 ff. ; Dr. Wessel- 
hoeft's water-cure, 112 ff. ; second 
son born, 115 ; Professor Stowe under 
Dr. Wesselhoeft's care, 115 ; cholera, 
116 ff. ; death of second son, 119 ; 
journey to Brunswick, 120 ff. ; diflB- 
culties of getting house in order, 
123 ff. ; birth of third son, 128 ; the 
Fugitive Slave Law, 130; terrible 
cold, 131; writing for the "Era," 
131; first chapter of "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," 133; letter to Frederick 
Douglass, 133 ff. ; " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin " finished, 136 ; success of her 
work, 137 ff. ; her modesty, 137 ; work 
for the Edmondson family, 138 ff. ; 
hears Jenny Lind, 140 ; history of the 
growth of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
141 ff. ; George Sand's critique, 151 ff.; 
addresses, 158 ff. ; returns to Brooklyn, 
162 ; Mrs. Howard's narrative, 162 ff, ; 
removal to Andover, 166 ff. ; " Key to 
Uncle Tom's Cabin," 171 ; letter to 
Mrs. Follen, 173 ff. ; visits England, 
178, 191 ; Scotland, 180 ; France, 202 ; 
Switzerland, 202 ; returns to Amer- 
ica, 204 ; personal appearance, 205 ff. ; 
open letter to Scotland, 208 ff. ; appeal 
to American women, 210 ff. ; letter to 
Garrison in regard to Douglass, 214 ; 
" Dred," 215 ff. ; second trip abroad, 
216 ff.; success of "Dred," 318 ff.; 
correspondence with Lady Byron, 217, 
223, 236; visits Lady Mary Labou- 
chere, 224 ff. ; Charles Kingsley, 227 ; 
in Paris, 228 ff. ; in Italy, 230 ff. ; Har- 
riet Martineau's approval of " Dred," 
232 ff . ; return home, 238 ; drowning 
of her eldest son, Henry, 238 ff. ; 
"The Minister's Wooing," 248 ff. ; 
Lowell's approval, 248 ff. ; third trip 
abroad, 252 ff. ; England, 252 ; Lau- 
sanne, 252 ; Florence, 252 ff. ; spirit- 
ualism, 253 ; Rome, 255 ; not a society 
woman, 256 ; return to America, 257 ; 
civil war, 258 ff. ; her son enlists, 259 ; 
at Jersey City, 259 ; in Washington, 

261 ff. ; Emancipation Proclamation, 

262 ; appeal to Englishwomen, 263 ff. ; 
replies to her letter, 268; interview 
with Lincoln, 269 ; letters to the 
Duchess of Argyll, 269 ff., 274 ff. ; her 



INDEX 



405 



son wounded, 272 ; end of the war, 
274 ff. ; death of Annie Howard, 279 ff.; 
crossing the Atlantic, 2S2 ; " Agnes of 
Sorrento," 283, 2S5 ; letter to Mrs. 
Howard, 284; "The Pearl of Orr's 
Island," 285 ff. ; letters to Mrs. 
Browning, Mr. Ruskin, and Dr. 
Holmes, 288 ; a street Arab, 291 ; re- 
moval to Hartford, 293 ff.; "House 
and Home Papers," 295 ff. ; marriage 
of youngest daughter, 297 ; not a stu- 
dent of literature, 299 ; Inspiration due 
to sympathy with humanity, 300 ; life 
in Florida, 302 ff. ; joins Episcopal 
Church, 304; "Men of Our Times," 
305 ; visitors, 306 ; spiritualism, 
306 ff. ; " Oldtown Folks," 311 ff. ; 
death of Lady Byron, 318 ; fulfiUs her 
promise to Lady Byron, 319 ff. ; be- 
comes a grandmother, 324 ; financial 
difficulties, 326 ff. ; " The Christian 
Union," 326 ff. ; "My Wife and I," 
328 ; illness of youngest daughter, 
330 ; death of sister's husband, 331 ; 
Boston fire, 331 ; loss of her son Fred- 
erick, 333 ; acquaintance with George 
EUot, 333 ff. ; cordial greetings in the 
South, 337 ; public readings, 344 ff. ; 
trial of Henry Ward Beecher, 352 ff. ; 
correspondence with George Eliot, 
360 ff. ; letter to Dr. Holmes, 369 ; 
" Poganuc People," 372 ff. ; a de- 
lightful conversationalist, 376 ; love 
of fun, 377 ; want of self-conscious- 
ness, 377 ; inspired to write " Uncle 
Tom's Caoin," 377 ; absent-minded- 
ness, 378 ; Professor Stowe's book, 
379; death of Mr. Fields, 380; last 
public appearance of Mrs. Stowe, 380 ; 
putting her papers in order, 383 ff. ; 
pleasure in reading, 383 ; John Quincy 
Adams, 383 ff. ; touglmess of negroes, 
386 ; last winter in tlie South, 387 ; 
Professor Stowe's illness and death, 
389 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe's last days, 390 ff. ; 
death, 393 ; correspondence, see Let- 
ters. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, daughter of 
Mrs. Stowe, 96. 

Stowe, Henry, son of Mrs. Stowe, 96 ; 
pledges in cold water at Dunrobin, 
219 ; returns to America, 221 ; fresh- 
man in Dartmouth College, 238 ; is 



drowned in Connecticut River, 238 ; 

his character, 240, 242, 243. 
Stowe, Samuel Charles, son of Mrs. 

Stowe, 115; sickness and death, 117 ff. 
Study, Lyman Beecher's, in Litchfield, 

Harriet Beecher's delight in, 27. 
Sturge, Joseph, Mrs. Stowe the guest of, 

191. 
Sutherland, Duchess of, true to cause of 

freedom, 160 ; letter to, regarding the 

" Key," 171 ; Mrs. Stowe meets, 193 ; 

warm friendship for Mrs. Stowe, 200 ; 

Mrs. Stowe visits at Dunrobin, 216 ff . 
Switzerland, Mrs. Stowe in, 203. 
Sykes, Mrs., see May, Georgiana. 
Sympathy with humanity, Mrs. Stowe's 

literary stimulant, 300. 

Tallahassee gives Mrs. Stowe a warm 
welcome, 337. 

Theocracy founded by Puritans in Mas- 
sachusetts, 56 ; reaction, 56 f . 

Thought, intense emotional, "a dis- 
ease" with Harriet Beecher, 81. 

Tilton, Theodore, his part in the Henry 
Ward Beecher scandal, 352. 

"Times," London, opinion of "Dred,'' 
221 ; misinformed on American sub- 
jects, 235. 

Titcomb, John, ingenious cooper, 126 ff. 

Tory, Mrs. Foote a, 21. 

Trevelyan, Sir Charles, Mrs. Stowe 
breakfasts with, 197. 

Triqueti, Baron de, at Belloc's studio, 
202 ; Mrs. Stowe at birthday party, 
228. 

Tyler, Eliza, see Stowe, Eliza Tyler. 

Typhoid fever, among students of semi- 
nary, 108. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," first chapter sent 
to the " Era," 133 ; last chapter, 136 ; 
in book form, 137 ; immediate success, 
137 ; Jenny Lind, 140 ; Rhodes's His- 
tory, 140 ; Mrs. Stowe's account of its 
writing, 141 ff. ; Mrs. Howard's ac- 
count, 163 ff. ; disagreement of the 
two accounts, 165 ; dramatization, 178 ; 
profits, 178 ; opinion of " North Amer- 
ican Review," 209; French enjoy it, 
229 ; a work of genius, 251 ; Mrs. Stowe 
preparing for, from birth, 295 ; writ- 
ten by inspiration, 163, 377. 



406 



INDEX 



Unitarians, dominant in Massachusetts, 

57. 
Upham, Mrs., friend of Mrs. Stowe's in 

Brunswick, 123, 128, 245. 

Van Zandt, Kentucky farmer, punished 
for protecting fugitive slaves, 145 ; 
Salmon P. Chase defends him, 145. 

Victoria, Queen, refuses to act against 
Northern States, 160 ; interested in 
"Dred," 219, 222, 22C ; Mrs. Stowe 
sees, 226. 

Walnut Hills, charming drive from Cin- 
cinnati, 80 ; home at, 86 £f. 
Ward, General Andrew, 5. 



Webster, Daniel, his seventh of March 

speech, 130. 
Weld, Theodore D., a student in Lane 

Seminary, 94. 
Wesselhoeft, Dr., Mrs. Stowe a patient 

in his water-cure, 112. 
" Western Magazine, The," pays Har. 

riet Beecher fifty dollars for her first 

story, 82 ; satirical essay on modern 

uses of language, 83. 
Whales as minister's salary, 7. 
Wigham, Mrs. letter to, 212. 
Windsor, Mrs. Stowe visits, 197. 
Wolcott, Oliver, Jr. friend of Lyman 

Beecher, 8. 
Wright, N., talks of revolution, 95. 



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